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INTELLIGENCE  AM 
POLITICS 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
FRANK  J.  KLINGBERG 


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INTELLIGENCE       | 

AND  I 

POLITICS 

in- 
James    T.  Shotwell 

Professor  of  History  in  Columbia  University 


NFAV  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1021 


iniiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinmiiiiiiiiiiiii^^ 


INTELLIGENCE 

AND 

POLITICS 


BY 


James  T.  Shotwell 

.     /  .       .     .      • 

Professor  of  History  in~^»lutnhia  University 
Member  American  Delegation  to  Negotiate  Peace,  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

THE^CENTURY  CO. 

-^-     1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by  The  Century  Co. 


Jv 


PREFACE 

The  phrase  "to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy"  has 
become  a  by-word  for  cynics;  and  for  this  the  optimists  are 
to  blame.  They  failed  to  appreciate  the  dimensions  of  the 
task.  But  the  task  itself  is,  if  anything,  more  valid  than  ever, 
by  reason  of  the  added  danger  of  disillusionment;  and  unless 
some  definite  effort  is  forthcoming  to  make  good  the  failure, 
the  cynic  will  be  justified  by  more  than  an  eclipse  of  ideals. 
There  are  large  sections  of  the  civilized  world  threatened  with 
the  loss  of  their  heritage  of  culture,  countries  where  the  guar- 
anty no  longer  holds  that  has  safeguarded  through  more  his- 
tories than  our  own,  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
Now  these  are  imperilled.  The  strain  upon  the  fabric  of  civ- 
ilization is  almost  at  the  breaking  point,  and  the  nation  that 
remains  complacently  indifferent  to  such  conditions  but  adds 
to  its  danger. 

It  is,  however,  less  because  the  problems  of  democracy 
are  so  pressing  than  because  the  means  for  dealing  with  them 
are  still  undeveloped,  that  the  following  pages  have  been  writ- 
ten. They  contain  no  program  of  anticipatory  solutions,  but 
are  limited  to  the  suggestion  of  devices  for  appreciating  ex- 
perience. It  is  surely  worth  while  to  see  if  the  political  ma- 
chinery already  in  operation  can  be  adapted  to  further  uses 
and  ultimately  be  made  effective  to  the  point  of  meeting  the 
great  emergency. 


1630,382 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  The  Hesitation  in  the  First  Phase  of  the  War     7 
II.  "Patriotism  Is  Not  Enough" 10 

III.  Tests 14 

IV.  A  Nation's  Intelligence 21 

V,  Applied  Political  Science  26 

VI.  Parties  and  Prejudices 34 

VII.  Parties  and  Facts 37 

VIII.  The  Alternatives 42 

IX.  Democracy  and  Public  Morality 45 


INTELLIGENCE   AND 
POLITICS 


THE  HESITATION  IN  THE  FIRST  PHASE  OF  THE 

WAR 

To  those  in  Washington  during  the  Spring  and  Summer 
of  1917,  who  were  in  a  position  to  watch  the  United  States 
adjust  itself  for  war,  there  was  presented  one  of  the  most 
sobering  experiences  ever  afforded  to  the  student  of  history. 

At  first,  as  we  all  know,  there  was  a  strong  emotional 
response  to  the  call  to  arms.  The  quarrel  that  had  been 
thrust  upon  us  had  been  taken  up  in  a  spirit  that  appealed 
to  the  nobler  instincts  of  the  nation  and  the  cause  was  made 
one  with  the  century-long  struggle  of  democracy  for  its 
place  in  the  sun.  Of  a  sudden  it  was  seen  that  the  decision 
which  had  been  taken,  placed  before  us  a  task  like  that  at 
the  founding  of  the  nation.  Democracy,  then  established, 
was  now  to  be  safeguarded,  not  only  here,  but  throughout 
the  world.  Although  we  could  but  dimly  sense  the  future, 
the  fact  that  the  American  flag — with  all  its  associations  of 
republican  history — was  to  be  carried  to  the  battle-lines 
of  Europe,  stirred  within  us  the  inspiration  that  comes  from 
the  consciousness  of  great  responsibility.  The  names  of 
Washington  and  Lincoln  were  evoked  to  witness  the  kin- 
ship of  our  spirit  with  that  of  the  heroic  past. 

There  are  no  instruments  or  methods  known  to  the 
social  sciences  by  which  to  measure  the  extent  of  this  emo- 
tional response  to  the  President's  war-message.      History 


will  have  to  rest  satisfied  with  the  casual  evidence  of  a 
limited  number  of  personal  experiences.  The  nation  was 
probably  almost  as  much  startled  as  it  was  inspired.  But 
whether  it  caught  its  breath  from  surprise  or  an  awed  sense 
of  new  duty,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  its  first  response 
was  one  of  acceptance. 

Then  came  a  reaction.  As  the  first  impulse  died  away 
and  it  became  necessary  to  translate  inspiration  into  action, 
the  country  began  to  show  signs  of  bewilderment  and  to 
demand  explanations  and  facts.  So  serious  a  change  set 
in  during  the  latter  part  of  April  and  the  entire  month  of 
May,  that  the  very  fate  of  the  country  seemed  to  hang  in 
the  balance.  This  is  fairly  well  known  to  every  one  who 
reads  the  newspapers,  but  to  those  engaged  upon  the  task 
of  keeping  the  nation  to  its  purpose  the  situation  devel- 
oped most  compelling  duties. 

Thousands  of  letters  poured  daily  into  those  offices  of 
the  Government  upon  which  devolved  the  task  of  setting 
forth  its  ideals  and  purposes.  They  came  from  all  parts  of 
the  country,  but  more  especially  from  the  West  and  the 
Middle  West,  where  the  European  War  had  not  seemed  so 
much  a  part  of  our  affairs  as  in  the  East.  They  came  from 
all  classes  of  citizens,  from  young  men  of  military  age — 
wanting  to  know  just  why  they  might  be  called  upon  to 
serve ;  from  fathers  and  mothers  asking  the  same  question 
for  their  sons;  insistent,  pathetically  insistent,  upon  their 
need  for  information  as  to  the  issue  involved  in  the  war; 
wanting  to  know  just  what  would  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy. 

The  writers  of  these  letters  were  asking  about  things 
they  had  never  troubled  about  before.  They  had  suddenly 
discovered  that  the  horizon  of  our  national  life  had 
widened ;  and  they  wanted  to  know,  most  of  them  probably 
for  the  first  time,  what  it  was  now  to  include.  They  were 
not  at  all  sure  that  these  unfamiliar  things  concerned  them. 
American  political  life — like  that  of  most  other  nations,  is 


still  parochial.  One's  own  home  is  the  natural  starting 
point  for  the  interest  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  political  or 
physical ;  and  in  America,  most  of  these  homes  have  been 
made  by  those  who  live  in  them ;  our  citizens  have  had  a 
share  in  a  great  creative  work,  building  by  their  own  efforts 
the  communities  as  well  as  the  houses  in  which  they  live. 
They  are  willing  to  admit  that — as  they  used  to  say  in  the 
Germany  of  a  kindlier  day — "over  the  hills  there  are  still 
people" ;  but  so  far  the  only  people  about  whom  they  have 
had  to  concern  themselves  have  been  people  of  the  same 
kind,  intent  upon  doing  a  day's  work,  and  minding  their 
own  business.  Now  these  people  were  writing  to  Wash- 
ington to  find  out  why  the  bottom  had  dropped  out  of 
things.  They  w'ere  called  upon  to  join  an  enterprise  which 
seemed  removed  as  far  as  possible  from  their  own  affairs. 
There  was  no  lack  of  good  will.  From  the  most  remote 
villages  men  were  ready  to  offer  themselves  for  the  supreme 
sacrifice  on  behalf  of  that  mystical  sovereign  of  our  whim- 
sical democracy — Uncle  Sam.  They  would  go,  if  Uncle 
Sam  really  needed  them.  But  they  asked  to  be  shown  how 
and  why  he  needed  them.  They  wanted  facts ;  and  until  they 
had  them  they  were  not  sure  themselves  how  far  their 
patriotic  duty  ran. 

That  is  the  way  the  war  came  to  the  towns  and  country 
of  America.  The  evidence  of  hesitation  in  the  second  phase, 
which  became  painfully  clear  to  observers  in  Washington, 
was  borne  out  by  an  analysis  of  the  press  of  the  country. 
In  such  a  condition  of  doubt  it  was  naturally  impossible  to 
feel  assured  of  the  readiness  of  the  nation  to  go  on,  whole- 
heartedly and  successfully,  with  the  struggle.  And,  among 
those  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  affairs,  there  was  some 
evidence  of  a  pessimism  or  uncertainty,  which  in  turn  re- 
acted upon  the  country  at  large.  For  a  time  the  situation 
was  such  as  to  cause  alarm  in  the  minds  of  those  who  had 
definitely  committed  themselves  to  the  policy  of  interven- 
tion.    Fortunately,  this  pessimism  w^as  not  justified.    Faced 


with  the  necessity  for  action,  once  the  decision  had  been 
made,  the  great  mass  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
felt  themselves  called  upon  to  defend  the  honor  of  their 
country,  to  "see  it  through" ;  and,  while  not  all  sharing  the 
full  ardor  of  conviction,  shouldered  their  burden  with  but 
slight  complaint. 

In  crises  like  these  a  nation  reveals  the  elements  of  its 
weakness ;  but  it  is  a  revelation  which  we  tend  to  overlook 
because  we  are  so  anxiously  intent  upon  finding  evidences 
of  its  strength  and  power  of  achievement.  Then,  as  soon 
as  we  begin  actually  to  accomplish  anything,  we  are  so  busy 
making  good  that  we  have  no  time  to  turn  back  and  analyze 
our  failures.  Afterwards,  we  trick  ourselves  in  order  to 
save  our  self-respect;  and  allow  our  historians  to  arrange 
the  retrospect,  so  that  future  generations  will  not  guess 
how  infirm  of  purpose  we  were  at  a  vital  moment ;  how 
near  the  nation  might  have  been  to  moral  disaster.  It  is 
possible  to  fool  history ;  it  has  been  fooled  steadily,  from 
the  royal  annals  of  the  Pharaohs  to  those  of  the  Hohen- 
zollerns.  Wherever  the  elements  of  a  great  story  are  woven 
together  by  the  art  of  the  narrator,  the  unheroic  tends  to 
disappear  from  the  narrative.  But  the  history  of  the  pres- 
ent war  does  not  yet  belong  to  the  realm  of  art.  We  can 
wait  awhile  for  the  epic.  Fooling  history  has  little  bearing 
upon  the  present;  but  fooling  ourselves  is  a  different  mat- 
ter.    The  worst  of  all  blunders  is  self-delusion. 


"PATRIOTISM  IS  NOT  ENOUGH" 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  did  not  solve  the  problem  which 
the  first  phase  of  our  war  presented — that  of  securing  the 
direct  adherence  of  a  great  democracy  to  a  policy  which 
demanded  that  it  make  sacrifices  for  things  beyond  the  clear 
range  of  its  interest. 

10 


In  place  of  a  solution,  we  fell  back  upon  something  that 
did  not  demand  thought,  something  so  primitive  and  so 
much  a  part  of  our  natures  as  to  belong  rather  to  instinct 
than  to  ideas — simple,  pure  loyalty  to  "Uncle  Sam."  The 
rough  mountaineering  moonshiner  who  brought  along  the 
gun  he  used  to  have  ready  for  government  revenue  officers, 
because  he  thought  "Uncle  Sam  might  need  him,"  was  but 
a  more  romantic  figure  in  a  nation-wide  movement.  This 
ancient  loyalty,  so  far  as  one  can  see,  saved  the  day,  rather 
than  a  clarified  idea  of  the  reasons  for  the  war. 

Valuable  as  such  a  sentiment  may  be,  it  is  not  as  sound 
an  element  of  national  life  to  rely  upon  in  a  crisis  as  this 
experience  might  lead  one  to  suppose.  If  the  loyalty  is 
unquestioning,  it  may  be  deceived ;  if  it  questions  it  may 
falter.  Disaster  may  front  either  alternative.  Indeed,  it 
is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  disaster  of  the  world  war 
came  through  the  failure  to  recognize  that  patriotism 
itself  is  not  enough.  Patriotism  unquestioning  confers 
power  with  irresponsibility  upon  Government ;  and  out  of 
that  finest  metal  of  the  soul,  in  which  sacrifice  tempers 
courage,  the  irresponsible  State  may  forge  the  weapons  of 
conquest  and  rapine. 

There  is  little  likelihood  that  we  shall  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  Germany,  the  Germany  of  1914,  and  imperil  our 
liberties  by  excess  of  loyalty.  We  have  too  much  of  the 
spirit  of  independence  for  that — an  independence  bred  first 
of  the  adventure  of  the  frontier,  and  then  impressed  upon 
our  character  by  the  opportunities  for  individual  enterprise 
which  go  with  the  opening  up  of  a  continent.  It  is  well, 
to  be  sure,  to  be  upon  our  guard  on  this  point,  seeing  how 
incredibly  an  intelligent  people  like  the  Germans  have  sur- 
rendered to  irresponsible  leadership  and  how  careless  many 
of  our  "best  citizens"  are  of  political  responsibility.  But, 
in  spite  of  the  growth  of  power  in  the  hands  of  our  execu- 
tives, state  and  city  as  well  as  federal — a  tendency  not  witli- 
out  its  dangers — there  remains  a  healthy  attitude  of  crit 

11 


cism  toward  our  officials,  which  finds  sufficient  expression 
to  keep  the  administration  continually  aware  of  its  proper 
subordination  to  the  popular  will. 

The  contrast  between  the  attitude  of  the  country  toward 
the  President  in  the  opening  months  of  the  war  with  that 
toward  him  after  the  war  was  over  illustrates  this  point 
very  well  indeed.  The  country  supported  Mr.  Wilson 
when  he  went  to  war,  although  it  had  apparently  elected 
him  largely  in  the  belief  that  he  would  keep  us  out  of  it, 
because  the  President  made  it  clear  that  he  was  closely 
observant  of  popular  feeling.  No  one  then  thought  of 
evoking  the  ancient  safeguards  of  our  Constitution  against 
the  tyranny  of  government ;  for  there  is  underlying  the 
Constitution  itself  a  sort  of  "social  contract"  between  gov- 
ernment and  the  people  which  keeps  even  a  war-president, 
with  all  his  power,  to  some  degree,  a  responsive  as  well  as 
a  responsible  head  of  a  nation.  But  popular  feeling  in  war 
time  is  a  vastly  different  thing  from  popular  feeling  in  time 
of  peace.  In  war  time  the  current  flows  one  way,  and, 
above  all,  the  call  for  common  action  is  directed  towards 
another  State — the  enemy  is  without.  In  time  of  peace, 
diversity  of  opinion  and  of  policy  makes  the  problem  of 
responsible  Presidential  leadership  distinctly  more  different 
— to  the  point  indeed  where  one  may  question  if  it  is 
possible.  Divergent  views  on  the  major  questions  of  the 
day  may  be  sustained  as  earnestly  by  sections  of  the 
country  as  the  principles  for  which  it  engages  in  war.  It 
is  this  very  complexity  of  the  national  life,  and  the  variety 
of  its  interests,  which  furnish  the  chief  security  against 
encroachments  of  power  by  an  Executive.  Criticism  de- 
velops automatically  in  such  a  situation,  and  the  American 
people  are  nothing,  if  not  critical. 

We  are  not  likely  soon  to  imitate  the  folly  of  Germany ; 
we  are  too  little  given  to  the  discipline  of  obedience  to  be- 
come   subservient.      But    the   other   alternative    is    a    real 

12 


danger.  It  is  in  the  guise  of  "Liberty"  that  anarchy  mas- 
querades. Anarchy  itself  as  an  article  of  faith  is  far 
removed  from  the  temperament  of  the  people.  There  is 
too  strong  a  belief  in  the  efficiency  of  the  Constitution  for 
such  a  creed  to  make  much  headway.  But  it  is  not  the 
formal  doctrine  of  anarchy  which  is  mainly  to  be  feared.  It 
is  that  simple  practice  of  taking  the  law  into  one's  own 
hands,  which  is  almost  as  distinctively  an  American  ele- 
ment of  social  practice  as  bureaucratic  regularity  is  Ger- 
man. Self-help  in  the  relatively  unformed  societies  of  the 
frontier  States — where  personalities,  rather  than  institu- 
tions, embody  law  and  order — was  a  vastly  diiTerent  thing 
from  the  breakdown  of  institutions  in  the  mature  and  im- 
personal society  of  the  business  world  which  moves  today. 
Behind  the  frontier  practices  there  lay  after  all,  some 
appreciation  of  that  subtle  bond  of  mutual  trust,  that  social 
contract  which  underlies  our  whole  political  structure,  for 
the  men  to  whom  fell  the  responsibility  of  leadership  had 
been  bred  in  communities  w^here  the  traditions  of  political 
life  were  deeply  rooted.  On  the  other  hand,  the  immigrants 
who  have  poured  in  by  millions  into  the  country  during  the 
last  generation  have  seldom  any  such  background  of  experi- 
ence. Their  appreciation  of  liberty  is  only  outwardly  the 
same  as  that  of  the  older  American  stock ;  and  there  is 
nothing  more  difficult  to  acquire  than  the  sense  of  balance 
between  self  and  society,  which  is  the  American  idea  of  a 
free  community.  The  European  war — especially  in  its 
earlier  stages — revealed  how  many  there  were  in  this 
country  who  had  not  yet  grasped  it.  Students  in  our  uni- 
versities, whose  ancestors  had  suffered  under  the  Czars, 
interpreted  the  troubles  of  our  colonial  era  as  though  the 
subjects  of  George  III  had  faced  circumstances  almost  as 
distressful  as  those  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Others  recalled 
the  cowed  populace  of  Austria  under  Metternich.  They 
had  no  suspicion  of  the  stern  insuppressible  spirit  of  the 
Puritan,  or  the  unsubdued   independence  of  the  frontier. 

13 


They  did  not  know  what  constructive  freedom  means.  For 
such  Americans  there  is  no  unwritten  Constitution  which 
steadies  our  loyalty  by  securing  our  liberties. 

Loyalty  is  the  emotion  of  patriotism ;  and  "patriotism 
is  not  enough,"  The  last  words  of  Edith  Cavell  should 
ring  out  as  a  warning  in  days  like  these. 

The  country  is  not  safe  which  relies  upon  patriotism 
alone  to  tide  it  over  its  crises — and  the  crises  which  the 
war  has  brought  are  by  no  means  over. 


TESTS 

History  shows  that  the  trial  of  war  is  always  a  double 
one;  the  hardest  test  is  generally  in  the  readjustment  after- 
ward. In  the  case  of  most  great  wars,  one  can  definitely 
trace  this  second  struggle  of  society  to  re-attain  the 
equilibrium  of  peace.  The  Hundred  Years'  War  cost 
France  two  centuries  more  of  such  readjustment.  In  the 
thirteenth  century  French  civilization  had  reached  almost 
the  threshold  of  modern  times.  It  had  practically  attained 
the  degree  of  political  development  which  it  had  three 
hundred  years  later  when  Richelieu  organized  the  admin- 
istrative structure  of  today.  Between  that  earlier  dawn  of 
politics,  that  day  of  Gothic  art,  when  the  great  medieval 
cathedrals  were  building  in  every  busy  city,  when  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  was  begun,  when  the  law  courts  settled  in 
the  royal  palace,  and  lawyers  began  to  rule  in  the  name  of 
even  such  a  king  as  St.  Louis — between  that  day  and  the 
time  of  Richelieu  stretches  a  story  of  tragic  import.  It  shows 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  and  intellectual  decline 
of  a  nation  under  the  stress  or  menace  of  war.  There  was 
the  devastation  by  the  bandit-soldiery  who  helped  to  win 
the  war  for  the  King,  but  who  learned  to  defy  the  royal 
power  once  it  had  become  dependent.  Then  the  rival 
houses  of  Burgundy,  and  Armagnac,  profiteers  of  anarchy, 

14 


terrorized  the  land  by  every  crime  in  the  calendar.  In  the 
following  age,  even  in  the  name  of  religion,  the  Guises  and 
the  Bourbons  kept  the  country  in  anarchy  and  ruin.  In 
short,  for  almost  three  centuries  France  made  little 
progress,  unable  to  recover  from  the  effects  of  one  war 
until  its  evil  consequences  had  bred  another. 

German  history  can  offer  similar  tribute  to  the  blasting 
after-effects  of  war.  Not  to  go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
so  filled  with  illustrations  of  the  backward,  brutalizing 
nature  of  the  so-called  "chivalry",  take  only  the  results  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  when  the  strength  of  Germany  was 
so  wasted  that  it  was  benumbed  for  a  century,  unable  to 
produce  a  single  work  of  literature  worth  recording,  or  at 
least  fit  to  rank  with  the  great  classics  in  German  speech. 
Whether  a  nation  is  bled  white  or  bleeds  itself,  its  loss  in 
vitality  is  all  the  same. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  in  detail  such  instances  as 
these.  But  it  is  surely  pertinent  at  the  close  of  this  war  to 
recall  the  dark,  stifling  years  of  Europe  after  Waterloo — 
the  mad  revanche  on  the  part  of  those  whom  the  Revolution 
and  Empire  had  dispossessed,  the  suffering  of  the  helpless 
poor  to  which  Blue  Books  bear  tragic  witness,  the  foolish 
suppression  of  thought  by  governments  still  feeling  them- 
selves insecure,  and  the  long  delay  of  reform,  which  the 
exhausted  nations  tolerated  rather  than  suffer  from  another 
upheaval.  History  has  no  surer  generalization  to  offer 
than  that  war  leaves  the  gravest  issues  still  to  be  fought 
for. 

Of  these  two  tests,  moreover,  it  is  the  second  one,  that 
which  comes  after  the  fighting  is  over,  which  tries  our 
stamina  most  severely.  It  is  a  test  of  moral  character,  after 
all  the  enthusiasm  has  been  burned  out  in  the  war  itself. 
It  leaves  us  to  march  to  our  goal  with  no  bands  playing, 
no  flags  flying,  no  inspiriting  comradeship  keeping  step. 
The  orders  are  by  no  means  clear;  we  are  left  to  our  own 
devices  and  the  confusion  of  divided  counsels.     Tired  out 

15 


when  we  begin,  from  the  exhaustion  of  the  war  itself,  at  a 
moment  when  we  need  every  ounce  of  strength  for  the  new 
demands  upon  our  energy,  we  face  a  crisis  of  the  gravest 
sort.  We  have  not  only  to  safeguard  the  issues  fought  for, 
but  to  re-adjust  ourselves  from  the  fighting;  to  take  up  in 
the  post-war  period  the  problems  which  have  accumulated 
upon  our  hands  during  the  period  when  we  had  no  time  to 
consider  them.  This  is  the  hardest  test  which  can  be  set 
before  the  nation,  and  history  has  so  far,  in  every  instance, 
had  to  record  a  measure  of  defeat.  It  makes  little  differ- 
ence whether  a  nation  has  been  victorious  or  vanquished; 
though  the  failure  is  of  a  different  kind.  In  conquered 
states,  as  Machievelli  pointed  out,  seditions  arise;  but  the 
conquerors  suffer  hardly  less  in  frustrated  ambitions  and 
distorted  ideals.  The  case  of  our  own  history  after  the 
Civil  War  is  to  the  point.  Not  only  was  there  the  sad 
blundering  of  Reconstruction,  in  which  the  temperate 
statesmanship  of  Lincoln  was  lost  to  sight  in  the  ardor  of 
partisanship,  but  public  office  became  the  spoil  of  placemen. 
Soldiers,  sometimes  but  poorly  qualified  to  assume  the  con- 
trol of  the  intricate  mechanism  of  civil  government,  became 
the  administrators  of  the  nation's  business.  And  that  busi- 
ness was  at  its  lowest  ebb. 

Among  the  many  misleading  things  that  history  has 
been  guilty  of,  there  is  perhaps  nothing  worse  than  that  it 
should  have  treated  war  as  a  purely  military  event ;  for  the 
displacement  which  war  causes  in  the  process  of  civilization 
is  an  essential  part  of  war  history.  And,  unless  the  whole 
period  of  reconstruction  is  measured  as  part  of  the  event 
of  war  itself,  we  shall  never  come  to  any  clear  understand- 
ing of  the  catastrophe.  So  long  as  the  actual  fighting  is  in 
progress,  the  stimulation  of  war  activities,  regardless  of 
cost,  brings  out  a  delusive  appearance  of  prosperity  in 
industry  and  every  phase  of  national  production.  The 
pinch  comes  only  with  the  close  of  the  war,  when  the  forced 

16 


markets  no  longer  buy  and  the  process  of  deflation  sets  in 
with  its  menace  of  bankruptcy.  This  is  more  than  an 
economic  fact,  for  in  the  uncertainties  of  a  declining  market 
there  is  little  foothold  for  altruism  and  high  ideals.  With 
hardship  and  unemployment  brought  to  one's  door,  the 
interests  of  the  world  outside  grow  more  and  more  remote. 
It  is  a  notable  fact  that  where  the  sense  of  insecurity, 
economic  or  political,  dominates  in  national  outlook,  there 
is  little  chance  for  enlightened  statesmanship.  Insecurity 
raises  at  once  the  question  of  self-interest  and  self-interest 
under  such  circumstances  quickly  passes  over  into  pure, 
unenlightened  selfishness.  This  is  a  vicious  circle,  for 
selfishness  almost  invariably  defeats  its  own  ends.  It  may 
be  as  much  an  enemy  of  public  welfare  in  dictating  policies 
of  aloofness  and  protected  isolation  as  in  the  more  obvious 
and  aggressive  form  of  economic  imperialism.  Indeed  it  is 
doubtful  whether  withdrawal  from  international  co-opera- 
tion in  the  avenues  of  trade  at  a  time  when  it  is  most  needed 
is  not  a  greater  impediment  to  recovery  than  participation 
prompted  by  the  hope  of  gain.  In  any  case  both  policies 
are  likely  to  unmask  the  unlovely  forms  of  national  greed 
in  the  unhealthy  atmosphere  of  post-war  days. 

The  sense  of  insecurity  is  also  responsible  to  some  ex- 
tent for  a  tendency  for  one  aspect  of  war  itself  to  be  pro- 
longed after  the  fighting  is  over.  Militarism  has  come  to 
the  fore  for  something  like  a  generation  after  every  great 
war  in  history.  Military  heroes  tend  to  monopolize  the 
political  scene,  often  ill-equipped  for  the  problems  of  the 
peaceful  life.  This  is  not  simply  due  to  hero-worship,  as 
has  been  so  lightly  assumed.  It  also  springs  from  a  sense 
of  the  uncertainties  of  disturbed  international  relations  and 
the  unsettled  state  of  society  at  home.  Where  the  ordered 
processes  of  civilization  seem  ineflfective,  people  turn  to 
those  strong  and  forceful  characters  who  will  not  hesitate 
in  time  of  crisis.       Militarism    (including  navalism)   is  a 

17 


short  cut  to  safety.  Like  selfishness,  it  is  dangerous  in  pro- 
portion as  it  lives  upon  fear  and  the  sense  of  insecurity; 
for,  so  war  tends  to  perpetuate  itself. 

More  serious  than  the  growth  of  militarism,  however,  is 
the  failure  of  liberalism,  a  failure  which  seems  inevitably 
to  follow  war.  If  there  ever  was  a  time  when  forward- 
looking,  constructive  liberalism  was  needed,  it  is  surely  in 
times  like  these.  For  liberalism  offers  a  solvent  to  those 
problems  which  arise  when  new  and  old  forces  meet ;  it  is 
the  mediating  force  between  the  conservative  appreciation 
of  what  society  has  already  achieved  and  the  impatience  of 
radicalism  over  what  is  left  undone.  It  registers  the  con- 
stant adjustment  of  the  social  structure  to  the  play  and 
counterplay  of  policies  or  facts.  It  is  a  strange  paradox 
that  a  movement  which  has  this  element  of  compromise  in 
its  very  make  up  seems  to  acquire  in  time  of  war  the  unad- 
justable  character  of  the  doctrinaire,  holding  to  its  ideals 
of  progress  and  reform  in  spite  of  impossible  conditions, 
blind  to  expediency  and  to  the  interests  of  the  state.  The 
result  has  been  its  own  discomfiture  and  the  resultant 
lessening  of  the  adjustability  of  society  to  the  needs  of  the 
day. 

This  eclipse  of  liberalism  is  perhaps  best  seen  in  the  way 
in  which  the  two  ideals  of  nationalism  and  liberty  have 
thrown  aside  the  restraints  of  responsibility  and  become  an 
explosive  force  of  decentralization  and  chaos.  It  is  a  hard 
blow  to  liberals  to  see  the  smaller  people  of  mid-Europe, 
for  whose  freedom  the  allies  fought,  endangering  the 
heritage  of  a  thousand  years  of  European  culture  by  erect- 
ing impassable  frontiers  and  cherishing  behind  them  more 
of  ancient,  tribal  hatred  than  of  a  sense  of  that  world  citi- 
zenship in  whose  name  their  liberties  were  evoked.  Self- 
determination  proved  to  be  a  most  dangerous  shibboleth, 
and  to  lend  itself  in  the  hands  of  immature  peoples  to  the 
most  grotesque  demands  of  sovereignty. 

18 


Finally,  the  menace  most  in  evidence,  th^  Revolutionary 
movement  of  radicalism,  is  perhaps  less  menacing  by  itself 
than  as  a  result  of  the  others.  In  the  period  of  deflation 
there  is  likely  to  be  more  suffering  by  the  working  class 
than  protest.  Unemployment  brings  a  sense  of  helpless- 
ness rather  than  of  belligerency.  But,  if  the  situation  is 
not  intelligently  met  and  only  oppressive  measures  are 
taken  when  protests  do  arrive,  we  shall  all  suffer  for  it. 
Whatever  happens  in  America  it  is  well  to  recognize  that 
Bolshevism  is  but  the  extravagant  aspect  of  the  most  pro- 
found change  that  European  society  has  undergone  since 
1789,  when  France  threw  off  the  structure  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  it,  the  proletariat  in 
every  country  there  has  been  watching  with  deepest  inter- 
est the  spectacle  of  the  docile,  ignorant  peasantry  of  Russia 
arousing  itself  to  what  has  been  hailed  as  the  vastest  social- 
istic experiment  ever  brought  to  the  verge  of  reality.  Even 
while  discounting  the  success  of  that  experiment  and  re- 
fusing to  enlist  in  the  Third  International  at  the  behest  of 
Lenine,  the  leaders  of  revolution  in  the  western  area  can 
still  command  large  forces  of  their  own,  and  if  no  outlet  is 
offered  through  the  agencies  which  the  State  supplies,  they 
will  sooner  or  latter  bring  disorders  within  it. 

The  menace  in  this  movement  is  less  in  America  than 
in  older  and  more  organized  societies,  for  this  country  is 
still,  upon  the  whole,  the  land  of  opportunity.  If,  how- 
ever, opportunity  should  be  unduly  curtailed,  the  tide  of 
revolt  piles  up  behind  the  impediments  and  bursts  out  in 
strikes,  in  riots,  and  in  the  danger  of  civil  w'ar.  That  very 
spirit  of  independence  in  our  democracy,  to  which  reference 
has  been  made,  makes  ever  ready  an  insubordination  and 
defiance  of  constituted  authority,  and  lends  to  our  labor 
troubles  a  peculiarly  sinister  aspect. 

So  far  we  have  attempted  to  meet  this  situation  armed 
with  little  else  than  the  emotion  of  patriotism.  We  have 
struck  instinctively  rather  than  intelligently  at  radicalism, 

19 


failing  to  see  that  there  must  be  something  more  substan- 
tial in  the  faith  of  our  democracy  than  mere  reliance  upon 
the  old-fashioned  loyalty  to  "Uncle  Sam,"  if  it  is  to  be 
proof  against  the  allurements  of  the  demagogue.  For  the 
world  has  so  lost  its  moorings,  that  the  distant  illusive 
shores  of  Utopia  sometimes  seem  almost  in  sight ;  and  well- 
meaning,  earnest  men  are  ready  to  risk  even  ship-wreck  to 
reach  them.  High  aspirations  are  not  infrequently  the 
cause  of  disaster.  And  if  the  breath  of  the  new  day,  which 
has  given  life  to  aspirations  for  world  democracy,  stirs  as 
well  the  embers  of  a  revolt  against  the  whole  social  struc- 
ture, no  simple  emotions  of  patriotism  will  be  proof  against 
it  as  it  bursts  into  flame.  There  must  be  something  more 
than  loyalty  to  old  traditions  in  our  citizenship.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  great  numbers  of  our  citizens  have  no 
share  in  those  traditions,  the  ideal  of  international  solidarity 
along  the  lines  of  economic  interest  seems,  to  many,  a 
sounder  principle  of  society  than  that  of  the  old-fashioned 
patriotism. 

Socialism  cannot  be  disposed  of  by  emotions.  The  test 
of  war  has  shown  that  some  of  the  constructive  features  of 
its  program  have  been  adapted  to  suit  the  needs  of 
most  of  the  European  States.  It  is  no  longer  a  mere 
philosophy  of  doctrinaires ;  it  is  one  of  the  real  facts  of  a 
very  real  world.  National  oversight  and  control  of  public 
utilities  is  a  policy  with  very  elastic  possibilities  of  applica- 
tion. The  problem  is  one  to  be  faced  and  studied  intelli- 
gently, not  left  to  prejudice  and  impulse  to  decide.  The 
extension  of  Government  control  over  the  economic  ma- 
chinery of  the  modern  world  is  a  process  so  general  and  so 
insistently  demanded  that,  whether  one  names  it  socialism 
or  not,  it  is  one  of  the  most  decisive  features  of  political 
life  today.  The  more  one  watches  this  development,  how- 
ever, the  more  one  sees  how  poor  and  frail  a  thing  is  mere 
patriotic  emotion  to  steady  our  democracy  in  the  face  of 
the  experiments  which  it  seems  sure  to  try,  and  to  save  it 
from  the  folly  of  extremes. 

20 


A  NATION'S  INTELLIGENCE 

We  have  talked  about  preparedness,  but  the  best  de- 
fences are  still  unprovided.  The  strongest  weapon  in  a 
nation's  armory  is  intelligence ;  its  most  formidable  force 
is  knowledge  under  control.  If  these  are  not  available,  we 
are  unprepared  for  emergencies.  The  only  safety  l<jr  de- 
mocracy, faced  as  it  is  with  sudden  crises,  is  to  arm  itself 
with  facts  as  definitely  as  with  navies  and  armies.  Yet  this 
has  never  been  done,  in  any  adequate  way. 

The  only  arming  of  intelligence  with  which  the  nation 
concerns  itself  as  a  whole,  is  that  of  little  children.  At  the 
age  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  over  eighteen  million  of  the 
nineteen  and  a  half  million  children  in  our  schools  close 
their  books  of  history  and  geography,  their  readers  and 
grammars  and  go  out  to  make  a  living.  That  is  a  young 
nation  in  itself — more  than  twice  the  size  of  the  entire  pop- 
ulation of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  almost  as  large  as  the  mass 
of  nations  once  under  the  crown  of  Hungary,  and  not  much 
less  than  all  the  Prussians  in  Prussia.  And  it  never  gets 
beyond  the  elementary  grades. 

Out  of  the  nineteen  and  a  half  million  in  the  primary 
schools,  a  million  and  a  half  are  privileged  to  go  to  high 
schools  and  academies ;  but  our  colleges,  professional 
schools  and  universities,  for  all  that  is  spent  upon  them, 
both  by  private  endowment  and  large  state  grants,  are 
attended  by  only  about  275,000  students.  By  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  about  95  per  cent  of  our  young  men  and  women 
are  through  with  the  process  of  education.  Some  4  per 
cent  (of  those  of  that  age)  are  still — presumably — studying. 
This  is  the  extent  of  our  formal  attempt  to  prepare  the 
nation's  surest  defense — its  intelligence. 

There  is  little  use,  however,  in  our  deploring,  such  as 
inadequate  return.  For  no  amount  of  theorizing  or  benevo- 
lence will  change  the  facts.  They  depend  upon  the  inex- 
orable laws  of  economics.     Most  of  the  boys  and  girls — the 

21 


eighteen  millions  or  so — who  leave  school  between  the  ages 
of  twelve  and  fourteen  do  so  because  they  have  to  earn 
money  or  help  others  to  earn  it.  The  only  way  to  secure  a 
longer  and  a  better  chance  for  our  future  citizens,  is  to 
revise,  not  the  curriculum,  but  the  economic  system.  And 
that  is  a  task  we  are  not  likely  to  undertake — in  any  na- 
tional way — for  the  present. 

But  given  things  as  they  are,  taking  the  country  as  it  is 
— not  a  bad  starting  point,  after  all — can  anything  be  done 
to  reach  the  eighty  millions  of  grown  up  men  and  women 
who  are  the  citizens  of  today?  How  can  we  arm  their 
intelligence  with  facts?  This  is  the  most  important  single 
question  facing  the  country  today. 

The  future  belongs  to  the  nation  that  learns  to  bring 
its  intelligence  to  the  great  task  of  developing  rather  than 
destroying  natural  resources,  of  maintaining  its  place  in  the 
world  without  robbing  either  its  own  future  or  the  present 
of  others.  Waste  in  production  and  in  war  must  be 
eliminated ;  otherwise  we  are  within  sight  of  the  collapse  of 
civilization.  Yet,  to  judge  by  the  utterances  in  press  and 
on  the  platform,  we  are  still  content  to  bring  to  such  prob- 
lems, not  the  intelligence  and  informed  constructive  minds 
which  might  solve  them,  but  emotions,  prejudices  and 
ignorance.  This  is  partly  the  blighting  effect  of  war  upon 
us ;  partly  the  result  of  never  having  had  to  think  along 
these  lines,  because  nature  in  America  has  been  so  prodigal. 
But  the  day  is  at  hand  when  we  must  measure  up  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  either,  by  reckless  competition  for 
new  materials  and  markets,  force  along  once  more  that 
process  of  destructive  production  which  awakens  national 
animosities  and  kindles  war,  or  by  more  far-sighted  policies 
conserve  the  resources  and  the  peace  of  the  world  at  the 
same  time.  It  is  not  easy,  in  the  situation  which  the  war 
has  brought,  to  preserve  the  clear  vision  which  the  latter 
policies  demand.  Thwarted  ambition  on  the  part  of  our 
late  enemies,  and  pressing  need  on  the  part  of  our  friends, 

22 


imperil  the  economic  equilibrium  of  the  world.  But  a 
deeper  reading  of  history  than  politicians,  or  men  of  affairs 
seem  able  to  devote  to  it,  will  show  that  whatever  flag 
floats  over  the  strategic  highways  and  markets  of  the  world, 
the  real  control  will  pass  to  those  who  bring  to  Mesopo- 
tamia or  Zanzibar  the  irresistible  power  of  modern  science, 
backed  by  capital  and  supported  by  intelligence. 

To  most  people  in  this  country  these  things  seem  far 
removed  from  American  interests.  But  they  are  part  and 
parcel  of  our  business  world,  and  hence  of  our  national  in- 
terests. We  have  already  learned  that  henceforth  the  seas 
we  sail  must  be  considered  as  much  a  concern  of  our 
national  life  as  the  railroads  which  cross  our  plains.  We 
could  no  more  allow  the  U-boat  murderer  to  remain  at  large 
on  the  sea  than  the  bandit  on  the  township  side-road.  We 
have  learned  this  first  lesson  in  world  citizenship.  But  it 
is  a  long  step  from  that  to  a  realization  that  we  are  inter- 
ested in  the  peaceful  traffic  as  well.  A  southern  planter 
v.ho  hardly  knows  whether  Turkestan  is  in  Asia  or  Africa 
may  find  that  its  irrigated  fields  some  day  have  displaced 
his  cotton  in  the  markets  of  Europe.  In  the  past  such 
things  have  not  mattered  much  to  us ;  but  we  are  from  now 
on  a  much  more  intimate  part  of  the  great  world  organism. 
In  the  past  we  were  content  to  leave  such  "business"  in  the 
hands  of  an  aristocracy  of  business  intelligence.  But  from 
now  on  we  need  to  distinguish  between  the  management 
of  business,  which  is  a  matter  for  technical  and  specialized 
business  men,  and  the  implications  and  effect  of  it  upon 
society,  which  is  a  matter  of  general  concern.  There  must 
be  found  a  way  to  interest  the  general  public  in  its  own 
larger  interests.  It  should  be  possible  just  as  much  for 
policies  of  peace  as  for  those  of  war.  Unless  we  do,  our 
enterprises  will  be  thwarted,  their  purposes  challenged  and 
even  the  just  profits  expropriated.  The  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation must  be  shown  how  its  welfare  is  involved.  The 
stockholders  of  the  great  Co-operative  Wholesale  Stores  of 

23 


England  know  that  the  few  shillings  or  pounds  of  shares 
they  own,  make  them  partners  in  the  spice  islands  and  dis- 
tant shipping  which  that  great  corporation  owns,  as  well 
as  in  the  factories  and  warehouses  at  home.  We  may  not 
try  any  such  co-operative  experiments,  but  we  must  secure 
a  common  interest  in  the  enterprise  of  American  business. 

The  only  way  to  achieve  this  result  is  to  educate  the 
eighty  million  grown-up  citizens  of  this  country.  The 
stimulus  of  war  has  taught  them  much — enough,  perhaps 
to  meet  the  war-emergency.  But  when  that  stimulus  ceases 
to  act,  and  the  slump  comes  which,  as  we  have  seen,  has 
followed  every  great  war  known  in  history,  have  we  any 
ground  for  hoping  that  we  shall  be  able  to  direct  our  poli- 
tics intelligently?  Almost  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  vast 
population  has  had  no  schooling  beyond  the  age  of  fourteen. 
It  has  forgotten  most  of  the  lessons  it  learned  in  those  days 
of  childhood.  It  is  living  in  the  narrow  routine  of  factory, 
farm  or  home  work.  The  tragedy  of  war  demands  of  it  the 
sacrifice  of  lives  in  the  fight  for  great  principles  which  all 
may  understand ;  but  in  time  of  peace  its  energies,  like  its 
prejudices,  are  confined  to  the  little  world  of  daily  experi- 
ences. Yet,  upon  the  uniformed  judgment  of  these  farmers 
and  villagers,  these  ignorant  workers  in  our  mines  and  on 
our  railways,  rests  the  responsibility  of  determining  the 
success  of  our  policies  in  the  most  decisive  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world !  This  is  not  theory,  but  sober  fact.  The 
issues  are  brought  home  to  us  as  surely  as  the  German 
army  brought  the  guns  to  Rheims.  Our  complacent  isola- 
tion is  shattered  for  all  time.  And  we  are  facing  this  por- 
tentous fact  with  the  unconcern  of  ignorance  and  the  chance 
instruments  of  the  old  regime. 

What  is  to  be  done  about  it?  Two  lines  of  action  nat- 
urally suggest  themselves.  On  the  one  hand,  to  proceed 
by  temporary  expedient,  on  the  other  to  apply  some  perma- 
nent, preventive  remedy. 

24 


In  the  present  war,  the  nation  found  itself  by  the  exten- 
sive use  of  temporary  and  specific  devices.  Newspapers 
and  magazines  adjusted  themselves  to  the  new  demands, 
and  found  in  the  vast  tragedy  of  the  war  a  sufficient  sub- 
stitute for  the  chronicle  of  scandal  or  of  amusement.  But, 
invaluable  as  these  proved,  they  are  in  their  very  nature 
most  unreliable  guides.  Articles  were  prepared  over-night 
by  publicists  who  turned  from  describing  millionaires' 
weddings  to  the  work  of  elucidating  German  Kultur — a 
product  of  centuries  and  as  intricate  as  the  life  of  a  nation. 
It  is  true  that  the  newspapers  for  once  tried  to  secure  the 
help  of  historians  and  economists  and  men  familiar  with 
European  affairs.  But  their  articles  were  as  like  as  not  to 
be  sandwiched  in  between  irresponsible  narratives  from  the 
untrained  imagination  of  former  city  reporters.  Yet  it 
must  be  admitted  that  our  journalists,  with  all  their  natural 
limitations,  did  exceedingly  well  in  the  war,  and  the  country 
at  large  learned  from  them  how  to  make  up  its  mind. 

But  even  at  best,  a  newspaper  is  a  thing  of  the  passing 
day.  Yesterday's  paper  is  already  in  the  waste-basket.  The 
best  of  articles  by  the  most  competent  of  men  have  no 
permanence  in  such  a  medium.  This  was  not  of  much  im- 
portance in  the  careless  days  before  the  war,  when  we  could 
pass  from  one  interest  to  another  without  troubling  our 
memories  unduly  over  past  events.  But  those  careless 
days  were  over.  In  August  1914,  and  again  in  April  1917, 
we  entered  upon  a  new  era,  and  developed  a  new  temper. 
We  wanted  to  keep  the  best  explanations  of  the  best 
authorities.  Numberless  scrap-books  were  begun.  Libra- 
ries enlarged  their  files.  Everyone  was  conscious  of  the 
importance  of  having  the  new  information  for  reference, 
since  there  was  too  much  for  anyone  to  remember  it  all. 
Some  newspapers  saw  in  this  need  a  chance  to  reprint  their 
leading  contributions  in  the  form  of  magazines.  The  mag- 
azines, however,  were  but  one  degree  less  fragile  than  the 
newspapers,  and  soon  the  reader  forgot  where  the  articles 

25 


were  to  be  found  in  them,  and  they  too  went  to  the  waste- 
basket. 

In  addition  to  the  changed  contents  of  periodicals  there 
was  an  entirely  new  output  in  books.  Serious  treatises  on 
international  law  for  a  brief  time,  became  "best  sellers," 
though  what  their  untrained  readers  made  of  some  of  them 
it  is  hard  to  say.  Governments  at  war  published  in  the 
guise  of  information  a  vast  amount  of  propaganda.  Alto- 
gether the  reading  world  was  overwhelmed  with  a  bewild- 
ering amount  of  war  literature.  But  once  the  local  situa- 
tion had  changed,  these  temporary  devices  for  the  informa- 
tion of  the  masses  proved  no  longer  of  interest,  and  since, 
owing  to  their  form  and  specific  use,  they  were  commonly 
treated  as  tools  to  be  applied  for  a  single  time,  they  and 
their  contents  were  rapidly  forgotten,  once  the  situation 
which  called  them  forth  had  passed  away. 

What  was  needed  was  something  more  permanent :  a 
stimulus  toward  an  attitude  of  mind  upon  which  one  could 
rely,  and  a  mastery  of  a  body  of  fact  which  would  not  pass 
away  at  the  first  turn  of  events.  In  short,  democracy  needs 
preventive  medicine  rather  than  temporary  remedies  for 
crises. 

APPLIED  POLITICAL  SCIENCE 

The  conclusion  is  clear.  There  must  be  economic  re- 
form, adjusting  society  to  its  changing  environment;  there 
must  be  reform  in  education,  extending  its  scope  and  revis- 
ing its  program  of  studies.  But  in  addition,  building  partly 
upon  these,  partly  independent  of  them,  there  must  be  a 
new  development  in  the  social  and  political  sciences.  If 
there  is  to  be  intelligent  foresight  in  national  questions,  we 
must  get  rid  of  our  careless  habits  of  "muddling  through" 
and  give  up  working  our  governments  by  rule  of  thumbs. 
In  short,  we  must  apply  scientific  methods  to  the  manage- 
ment of  society  as  we  have  been  learning  to  apply  them 
in  the  natural  world. 

26 


It  never  seems  to  occur  to  one  that  there  is  anything 
strange  in  the  fact  that  we  have  better  equipment  for  study- 
ing electricity  than  for  studying  society.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  our  whole  attitude  changes  when  we  turn  from  the 
physical  sciences  to  investigating  ourselves.  The  labora- 
tories for  social  measurements  have  hardly  been  fitted  up. 
We  are  in  the  political  sciences  where  the  natural  scientists 
were  two  hundred  years  ago.  We  have  no  sure  way  for 
knowing  a  fact  when  we  see  one;  no  instruments  for  deter- 
mining its  force  in  the  great  stream  of  events  which  make 
up  history.  While  the  physical  and  chemical  sciences  have 
gone  ahead  and  remade  our  universe  and  thrown  aside  the 
medieval  theories  which  restricted  their  free  investigation 
of  realities,  in  the  fields  of  the  political  sciences  there  have 
been  no  such  triumphs  to  record  either  in  creative  products 
or  in  the  mastery  over  hampering  prejudices  and  precon- 
ceived opinions.  The  very  word  "opinion"  can  hardly  be 
used  in  the  physical  sciences,  for  it  would  ill  describe  the 
processes  of  experiment.  This  is  not  to  imply  that  the 
successive  statements  of  results  which  the  sciences  issue, 
and  which  become  the  basis  of  our  world-view,  are  final 
and  absolute  truth.  There  is  a  temporary  element  in  them 
all,  a  guess  or  hypothesis,  as  in  all  human  reasoning. 
But  between  such  statements  of  the  evidences  furnished 
in  the  laboratory  and  the  casual  "opinions"  on  social  and 
national  questions  furnished  by  press,  pulpit  or  platform 
there  is  all  the  difference  that  lies  between  a  Kelvin  or  an 
Einstein,  measuring  the  forces  of  the  universe,  and  a 
Babylonian  astrologer  messing  in  star-portents  and  dreams. 

We  can  see  this  relative  backwardness  of  the  political 
sciences  by  a  glance  at  the  three  major  divisions  of  history, 
economics  and  anthropology. 

History,  although  much  improved  of  late,  is  still  largely 
a  repository  of  untested  data.  Not  that  the  things  may 
not  have  happened  which  it  records,  but  that  their  happen- 

17 


ing^  was  often  not  an  event  of  the  measurement  assigned 
it  by  a  casual,  pre-scientific  judgment.  The  accepted  per- 
spectives of  the  past  are  largely  chance  perspectives,  or 
the  reflection  of  uninformed  opinions  of  other  times,  which 
have  never  been  questioned  critically.  Take  as  a  single 
example  the  fact  that  the  French  Revolution  was  not  really 
understood  by  historians  for  a  hundred  years  after  it  had 
happened  ;  when  at  last,  a  concentrated  effort  of  scientific 
critical  minds,  re-examining  the  data,  remade  the  story. 
Much  of  what  is  taught  as  history  is  still  in  the  unsifted 
state  that  the  history  of  France  was  in  before  this  re-ap- 
praisal by  critical  scholarship.  Above  all,  modern  history 
is  but  a  monastic  tale  so  long  as  it  deals  only  with  the 
traditional  theme  of  debate  in  council  or  the  clash  of  war. 
The  greatest  events  in  modern  history  are  surely  those 
connected  with  science  itself,  mastering  not  only  abstruse 
problems  of  phenomena,  but  the  very  basis  of  civilization, 
in  the  control  of  time  and  space  and  of  the  productivity  of 
nature.  It  is  surely  a  fact  of  history  that  farming  is  be- 
coming applied  chemistry,  so  that  the  farmer  replaces  a 
primitive  superstition  about  the  luck  of  the  moon  at  plant- 
ing, with  an  interest  in  nitrates  in  the  soil,  and  so  escapes 
the  fetters  of  that  immemorial  conservatism  which  has 
characterized  the  country  people  of  the  past.  It  is  a  fact 
of  history  that  machinery,  in  supplanting  hands,  is  not  only 
creating  cities  but  dislocating  the  balance  of  power  between 
nations  far  more  effectively  than  the  old  diplomacy  was 
ever  able  to  do.  The  whole  history  of  civilization  must  be 
re-examined  in  the  light  of  scientific  analysis,  to  see  what 
data  really  matter,  and  to  eliminate  mere  tradition  based 
on  chance  or  nourished  by  prejudice. 

But,  the  student  of  history  will  at  once  protest  that  not 
too  much  can  be  expected  from  scientific  methods  in  his 
field,  for  our  view  of  the  past  is  never  more  than  a  reflection 
of  our  views  of  the  present.  We  inject  into  history  the 
major  interests  of  our  own  time ;  if  our  interest  is  theology, 

28 


our  history  will  be  theological ;  if  our  interest  is  politics, 
our  history  will  be  political.  The  relative  correctness  of 
our  view  of  the  past  will  therefore  depend  upon  w^hat  clarity 
of  vision  we  may  be  able  to  achieve  concerning  other  mat- 
ters than  history. 

This  brings  us  to  economics,  the  science  of  things  as  they 
are  supposed  to  be,  in  society  at  large.  Now  economics  has 
been,  like  history,  more  or  less  of  a  guess  at  what  things 
are,  or  a  succession  of  guesses  registered  by  men  of  genius  of 
of  great  learning,  but  none  of  them  supplied  with  an  ade- 
(juate  apparatus  for  measuring  the  larger  forces  which 
modify  or  control  society.  It  is  no  disparagement  to  those 
rare  leaders  in  either  economics  or  history,  "the  old 
masters,"  to  whom  we  ow^e  the  little  insight  we  possess 
in  such  matters,  if  w^e  frankly  admit  that  their  speculations 
are  now  chiefly  of  interest  to  the  historian  of  thought  rather 
than  to  the  investigator  of  data.  New  instruments,  new 
methods;  and  fortunately,  new  instruments  are  at  hand. 

It  is  the  same  with  anthropology  as  with  economics. 
The  comparative  study  of  mankind  and  of  the  elements  of 
society  has  only  recently  passed  out  of  the  stage  of  crude 
conjecture  and  haphazard  methods.  Little  enough  has 
yet  been  done,  but  already  a  whole  group  of  scientific  allies 
are  growing  up  to  work  together  upon  the  tangled  problems 
of  social  development,  sciences  of  language,  philology ;  of 
remains,  archaeology ;  of  religion  and  magic,  comparative 
religion ;  of  mental  traits  and  capacity,  comparative  and 
social  psychology;  of  social  phenomena  in  higher  forms, 
sociolog\\  The  combined  attack  of  these  new  inquisitors 
upon  the  age-long  misconceptions  as  to  the  fundamentals 
of  the  human  side  of  the  problem  is  bound  to  match  the 
achievements  of  economics  on  the  more  material  side. 

Whatever  the  contribution  which  these  sciences  offer, 
however,  we  come  back  to  the  point  that  they  have  done 
nothing  yet  comparable  with  the  work  of  the  physical 
sciences.     They   are   hardly   more   than   a   commentary   on 

29 


matters  that  lie  beyond  their  power  to  affect  or  control. 
The  anthropologist  and  the  historian,  for  instance,  can  point 
out  the  primitive  elements  in  the  emotion  of  patriotism,  of 
which  we  have  spoken  frequently  here ;  but  where  is  there 
any  evidence  of  the  effect  of  such  clarified  thinking  upon 
the  emotion  itself?  Indeed  so  ineffective,  upon  the  whole, 
have  the  political  and  social  sciences  remained,  that  thece 
is  a  general  skepticism  in  the  sciences  themselves  as  to 
whether  they  can  ever  be  anything  else  but  ineffective. 
But  this  conclusion  rests  upon  false  premises.  It  takes  for 
granted,  though  none  too  clearly,  that  the  social  sciences 
are  pure  sciences  and  not  applied  sciences;  that  their  proper 
purpose  is  the  search  for  truth,  and  that  they  would  be  de- 
flected from  their  true  course  if  set  to  work  in  the  play  and 
counterplay  of  the  crude  forces  of  actual  society.  The 
dominant  school  of  history  for  the  last  generation  so  prized 
the  objectivity  it  was  able  to  attain,  that  it  never  would 
risk  using  it  in  dangerous  places,  like  the  events  of  one's 
own  time.  Economics,  the  one  science  that  has  devoted 
its  attention  to  more  practical  tasks,  has  that  much  more  to 
its  credit.  Generally  speaking,  we  do  not  expect  much  of 
the  social  sciences  because  we  do  not  believe  that  it  lies  within 
their  proper  scope  to  master  their  phenomena  as  the  applied 
sciences  do. 

Now,  this  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter.  What  we 
need  is  applied  social  science.  We  need  to  have  something 
happen  in  politics,  for  instance,  comparable  to  what  hap- 
pened in  chemistry  when  Bessemer  set  his  steel  converter 
to  work.  We  must  learn  to  deal  with  social  facts  as  Watt 
dealt  with  steam.  Or  to  take  a  more  pertinent  illustration, 
we  must  work  at  the  data  of  national  problems  in  the  same 
spirit  as  that  which  Pasteur  applied  to  the  investigations 
which  changed  the  study  of  medicine  from  quackery  to 
science. 

Such  an   insistence  on  applied    science    does    not    imply 

30 


that  pure  political  or  social  science,  the  study  ot  truth  for 
its  own  sake,  would  suffer,  any  more  than  it  has  suffered  in 
the  physical,  chemical  or  biological  field.  On  the  contrary, 
out  of  the  vast  laboratory  of  experience  which  such  a  plan 
as  this  involves,  would  come  a  truer  vision  of  things  as  a 
whole  and  as  they  are.  Pure  science  is  but  the  overtone  of 
applied  science ;  its  poetry  and  its  philosophy. 

But  just  what  does  this  all  mean  in  terms  of  practice; 
and,  more  especially,  how  does  it  offer  any  promise  of  solv- 
ing the  pressing  problem  of  the  development  of  the  nation's 
intelligence  by  a  growing  mastery  of  fact  and  a  correspond- 
ing decline  in  prejudice? 

The  promise  lies  in  democracy  itself.  Nowhere  else  is 
there  a  greater  demand  for  facts,  for  intelligent  mastery  of 
data,  than  where  it  is  most  needed — in  those  sections  of  the 
working  classes  where  the  pressure  of  daily  need  shows 
with  stern  reiteration  how  much  the  times  are  out  of  joint. 
This  is  a  patent  but  strangely  ignored  characteristic  of 
democracy — its  appetite  for  facts.  We  are  constantly 
warned  of  the  contrary  tendencies ;  of  the  theoretical  revo- 
lutionary, and  the  fickle  whims  of  the  mob.  But  the  hold 
of  the  theorist  on  his  audiences  is  frequently  due  less  to  his 
theories  than  to  his  command  of  facts  and  his  ability  to 
present  them  so  that  they  reach  home  in  the  consciousness 
of  those  who  face  them  so  closely  day  by  day.  And  the 
fickleness  of  popular  opinion  is  not  seldom  due  to  the  re- 
peated discovery  that  what  has  been  dressed  up  as  fact 
turns  out  to  be  untrue.  Radical  literature  does  not  win  its 
way,  as  many  conservatives  seem  to  think,  by  presenting 
only  dreams  of  a  metaphysical  economic  heaven,  where 
capitalists  cease  from  troubling,  and  the  elect  co-operate. 
Its  driving  power  lies  rather  less  in  its  imaginative  pro- 
jections of  Utopia  than  in  its  criticism  of  things  as  they 
are,  which  everyone  can  recognize.  In  short,  the  moments 
of  thought  and  opinion,  which  stir  the  world  of  every  day, 
are  as  dependent  upon  fact  as  the  policies  of  state  with 

31 


which  they  deal.  And  there  is  more  sense  of  reality  in 
them  than  we  can  appreciate  unless  we  come  upon  the  facts 
from  the  same  angle. 

Behind  the  popular  outlook  lie  two  great  imperatives: 
the  need  for  adjustment  to  changing  environment — a  bio- 
logical as  well  as  an  economic  fact,  a  law  of  life  itself — and 
a  powerful  instinct,  curiosity.  It  was  curiosity  which  sup- 
plied the  impulse  for  science  and  produced  history  by  way 
of  gossip.  It  implants  in  us  all  a  tendency  so  strong  that 
we  are  prepared  to  run  almost  any  risk  and  pay  almost  any 
l)rice  to  satisfy  it.  Here  is  something  to  build  upon  surely. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  to  our  disadvantage  that  w^e  are  most 
curious  about  what  concerns  us  most,  giving  our  little  home 
affairs  precedence  over  larger  events  that  happen  to  others, 
for,  out  of  this  self-interest,  intelligence  can  forge  the  in- 
struments for  our  social  preservation. 

Here,  then  is  where  the  applied  sciences  of  politics  and 
society  must  be  set  to  work ;  not  in  the  isolation  of  aca- 
demic life,  which  may  properly  remain  philosophic  rather 
than  practical,  and  so  contribute  that  influence  which  pure 
thought  possesses  on  the  actions  of  men ;  but  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  work-a-day  world.  Facts  must  be  supplied 
where  the  need  for  them  is  greatest;  and  a  scientific  spirit 
must  be  developed  where  its  operation  would  be  mosf 
effective.  How^  can  this  be  done?  The  full  answer  can- 
not be  given,  for  it  is  the  quality  of  science  to  belie  all 
forecasts ;  but  enough  of  the  process  is  already  going  in 
our  midst  to  indicate  some,  at  least,  of  the  possible  lines 
of  procedure. 

There  exist,  chiefly  in  the  w^orld  of  business,  offices  de- 
voted to  the  investigation  of  the  facts  pertinent  to  the 
enterprises  undertaken.  Businesses  which  depend  most 
upon  long  foresight,  use  them  most,  such  as  banks  or  great 
corporations.  During  the  war,  government  departments 
found  it  necessary  to  develop  them  to  a  large  degree;  and 

32 


the  term  they  became  known  by  there — Intelligence  De- 
partments, aptly  characterizes  the  stimulus  they  were  to 
supply  as  well  as  the  scope  of  their  work.  Their  function 
is  to  investigate  and  report  on  the  data  on  which  policies 
rest.  Their  activity  depends  not  less  on  the  use  made  of 
their  work  than  on  the  work  itself;  for  no  investigator 
can  keep  his  heart  in  this  work  unless  he  know's  that  it  is 
being  applied  to  actual  problems.  But  so  far  the  use  has 
been  a  narrow  one,  simply  to  help  offices  transact  their 
business.  In  almost  all  cases,  and  even  more  so,  in  Govern- 
ment offices,  the  information  analyzed  is  for  those  few  who 
are  on  the  inside ;  it  becomes  a  business  or  a  department 
secret.  It  would  surely  be  a  step  towards  the  science  of 
applied  politics  if  such  devices,  as  they  become  perfected 
and  test  out  their  capacity  for  fact-analysis,  should  also 
enlarge  the  scope  of  their  application  to  include  citizens 
generally. 

At  once,  however,  we  come  upon  two  fundamental  ob- 
jections. In  the  first  place,  facts  are  not  simple  matters 
of  description.  They  are  variable  and  elusive  and  very 
hard  to  establish,  and  no  two  investigators  are  likely  to 
agree  in  all  details  in  their  reports.  In  the  second  place,  it 
would  deaden  curiosity  and  not  stimulate  that  criticism 
which  is  the  first  requisite  of  intelligent  citizenship,  if  a 
government  Intelligence  Service  were  to  ofiFer  to  do  a 
nation's  thinking  for  it !  We  do  not  want  a  German  bu- 
reaucracy dulling  our  judgment  by  its  very  efficiency. 

The  only  way  to  avoid  these  two  obstacles  is  to  chal- 
lenge authority  by  as  "authoritative"  data  in  the  hands  of 
an  opposition ;  and  to  profit  from  controversy  about  facts 
to  enlarge  our  notions  of  them.  If,  for  instance,  instead 
of  leaving  Intelligence  Work  for  the  Government  on  the 
one  hand,  or  specific  business  interests  on  the  other,  the 
Political  Parties  were  themselves  to  undertake  it,  and  so 
direct  their  appeal,  not  to  prejudice  and  emotion,  where 
they  make  it  now,  but  to  knowledge  and  insight,  it  would 

33 


contribute  enormously  to  steady  and  elevate  the  political 
outlook  of  the  country. 

PARTIES  AND  PREJUDICES 

The  place  "party"  occupies  in  modern  politics  is  a 
strange  one.  Although  in  every  country  that  has  developed 
popular  government,  that  development  has  been  reached  by 
way  of  parties,  they  themselves  have  remained  undeveloped, 
and  are  perhaps  the  most  primitive  elements  in  our  political 
life.  So  far  as  the  mass  of  the  nation  is  concerned  they 
furnish  little  more  than  an  instrument  for  intermittent  use 
at  elections.  Between  elections,  it  is  true,  they  still  func- 
tion through  the  agencies  of  representative  government ; 
but  to  keep  them  working  in  any  other  way  seems  to  most 
people  illegitimate.  A  tacit  social  agreement  exists  for 
minimizing  their  action  ;  and  those  who  use  them  between 
elections  are  labelled  as  "politicians," — a  word  of  ill-omen. 

This  may  be  partly  due  to  the  healthy  feeling  that  party 
government  is  something  better  than  its  premises ;  that 
those  elected  as  representatives  of  party,  once  elected,  be- 
come the  representatives  of  the  nation ;  and  that  any 
attempt  to  hold  them  to  the  narrowing  influences  of  party 
ties  is  a  sinister  movement  to  void  that  implied  "social  con- 
tract" to  which  we  referred  above,  which  safeguards  the 
rights  of  the  minority  in  the  body  politic.  With  this  sense 
of  enlarged  responsibility  which  widens  the  outlook  of  legis- 
lators from  politics  to  statecraft  one  must,  of  course,  be 
careful  not  to  interfere.  But  while  the  governments 
founded  upon  party  may  profit  from  an  escape  from  the 
machinery  which  secured  their  election,  it  is  an  entirely 
different  question  what  the  electorate  should  do.  For  them, 
released  as  they  are  from  all  responsibility  for  action,  ex- 
cept at  elections,  escape  from  party  means  generally  entire 
abstention  from  any  further  political  activity  whatever. 

34 


Now,  it  is  just  this  abstention  which  makes  the  party 
such  an  anomaly.  If  it  touches  the  electorate  only  at  elec- 
tion times,  it  naturally  plays  upon  those  more  permanent 
traits  of  national  character  upon  which  it  can  base  some 
hope  of  a  successful  appeal.  And  these  more  permanent 
elements,  if  the  nation  is  left  to  itself  and  faces  issues  unin- 
formed, are  prejudices  and  emotions  instead  of  reason.  The 
result  is  a  vicious  circle ;  an  uninformed  electorate  tends  to 
perpetuate  an  uninforming  political  machine.  Is  there  no 
escape  from  this  dilemma? 

The  first  condition  of  success  is  not  to  expect  too  much. 
There  is  no  use  planning  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  by 
way  of  any  one  line  of  endeavor ;  and  what  is  proposed  here, 
although  sufficiently  far-reaching  in  its  own  field,  is  after 
all  but  a  slight  affair  compared  with  the  stubborn  contin- 
uing realities  of  national  habit  and  outlook.  Most  people 
are  either  too  busy  or  too  indolent  to  take  much  consistent 
interest  in  problems  which  do  not  on  the  face  of  them  bear 
directly  upon  their  own  lives.  A  thoroughly  alert  electorate 
in  immediate  touch  with  scientifically  directed  political 
parties  is  quite  as  unreal  a  Utopia  as  any  ever  dreamed  of. 
But  there  is  a  practical  middle  course  between  the  crude, 
almost  anarchic  conditions  which  prevail  today,  and  the 
achievement  of  ideals.  The  clue  to  it  has  been  offered  by 
a  singular  and  wide-spread  movement  at  the  present  time, 
which  is  just  beginning  to  engage  the  attention  of  political 
observers,  that  w^hich,  under  one  form  is  known  as  group- 
action  in  politics ;  under  another,  as  direct  action.  We 
must  see  if  party-organization  can  profit  from  the  experi- 
ence of  these  movements. 

The  ineffectiveness  of  party  organization,  reflected  in 
representative  government  which  rests  upon  it,  has  led  to 
a  line  of  action  upon  the  part  of  those  interested  in  certain 
policies,  which  has  cut  in  upon  the  processes  of  that  govern- 
ment to  an  extent  unknown  by  the  citizens  at  large.  Groups 

35 


which  are  intent  upon  securing  or  preventing  government 
action  organize  themselves  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  upon 
legislatures  or  administrations.  They  may  use  the  lines 
which  lead  to  lobbies  and  more  or  less  corrupt  influences, 
or  they  may  content  themselves  with  the  effort  to  stir  the 
electorate  to  use  its  influence  through  the  mails.  In  most 
cases  they  claim  to  "keep  out  of  politics"  by  keeping  out 
of  political  parties,  having  only  specific  points  to  gain,  and 
not  a  continuous  policy  to  advance.  The  play  and  counter- 
play  of  these  "influences"  is  perhaps  as  determining  a  factor 
in  our  governmental  action  today  as  the  elections  them- 
selves. Some  observers  are  inclined  to  go  farther,  and  to 
say  that  the  center  of  political  forces  lies  in  such  group 
action  rather  than  in  the  older  parties  which  do  little  but 
supply  it  with  the  arena  and  the  nominal  protagonists.  It 
invades  the  executive  as  well  as  the  legislative  bodies,  de- 
ciding for  presidents,  even  when  elected  by  huge  majorities, 
who  shall  hold  portfolios  of  state.  Reformers,  business 
men,  labor  leaders  and  farmers,  all  classes  or  groups  that 
are  large  enough  or  important  enough  to  become  nationally 
articulate,  use  such  action  whenever  their  interests  are  at 
stake ;  for  it  is  their  only  way  of  reaching  those  "in  power" 
— a  power  achieved  through  party  action  at  the  polls. 

This  growth  of  group  action  may,  as  some  suppose,  be 
reaching  such  dimensions  as  to  offer  a  substitute  for  the 
ineffectiveness  of  party  politics,  called  out  by  the  growing 
complexity  of  modern  society.  And  if  the  test  is  to  be 
made  between  the  old  party  structure,  limited  to  election 
campaigns,  and  these  groups  representative  of  the  larger 
functional  units  of  the  nation,  the  group  action  is  sure  to 
grow  in  proportion  as  these  groups  express  the  coherent 
view  of  their  own  constituents.  But  before  such  a  tendency 
becomes  really  dominant,  it  is  well  to  see  how  much  of 
the  needs  which  have  called  it  out  can  be  met  by  readjust- 
ing the  formal  political  organization  which  we  already 
possess,  that  of  the  party. 

36 


If  parties  are  solely  for  election  purposes — apart  from 
their  role  in  legislatures  or  executives — then  it  is  clear  that 
we  shall  have  to  look  elsewhere,  more  and  more,  for 
guidance  in  crises.  The  problems  of  statecraft  do  not  come 
only  at  election  times ;  new  ones  arise  constantly,  involving 
issues  unforeseen  and  unforeseeable.  We  may,  in  the  old 
theory  of  representative  government,  say  that  our  legisla- 
tors are  left  free  to  meet  them  in  our  stead;  but  where  our 
interests  are  involved  deeply  enough  we  do  not  in  practice 
leave  our  representatives  free.  And  every  such  interference 
as  we  bring  to  bear,  tends  to  disorganize  the  institutions 
we  outwardly  regard  as  the  very  structure  of  the  state. 
There  are  only  two  alternatives ;  either  the  parties  must 
become  better  and  more  constant  media  for  expressing  the 
will  of  the  people,  more  adjustable  functions  of  the  body 
politic;  or  they  will  be  less  and  less  effective  in  securing 
us  a  working  government.  Since,  however,  they  still  re- 
main, in  popular  esteem,  the  chief  political  agency  of  the 
people,  it  surely  requires  no  further  argument  to  justify  an 
attempt  to  use  them,  if  we  can,  to  cure  their  own  ills. 

How,  then,  can  parties  become  less  these  dead-and- 
alive  organs  of  tradition  and  prejudice  which  they  have  so 
largely  been,  and  more  educational  with  regard  to  the 
electorate  and  functional  with  regard  to  the  government? 
The  answer  has  already  been  suggested  in  the  foregoing 
pages.    By  studying  facts. 


PARTIES  AND  FACTS 

If,  alongside  of  campaign  committees  and  the  other  ex- 
isting party  organs,  there  were  a  national  committee,  artic- 
ulated with  a  series  of  local  committees,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  find  out  the  facts  in  those  matters  upon  which  the  party 
must  in  any  case  have  an  opinion,  what  would  be  the 
possibilities  of  such  a  mechanism?      Its  value  at  election 

37 


times  is  already  recognized,  for  such  temporary  committees 
now  exist ;  but  a  well  organized  permanent  organization, 
with  its  capital  already  largely  available  in  the  shape  of 
well-ordered  reference  files  would  enormously  increase  the 
efficiency  of  the  present  devices.  Apart  from  elections, 
however,  it  could  supply  legislators  with  data  for  debate 
and  party  leaders  with  the  means  for  criticizing  opponents 
or  better  weighing  current  issues.  By  the  sheer  advantage 
which  it  could  oflfer  over  those  who  lacked  the  facts,  it 
would  justify  itself  as  a  part  of  the  party  machine. 

But,  beyond  that,  it  would  help  to  restore  confidence  in 
the  honesty  of  political  leadership.  Frankly  admitting  the 
partisan  use  to  which  its  conclusions  would  be  put,  it  could 
still  ensure  thoroughness  in  research,  knowing  that  any . 
mistake  in  fact  would  be  detected  and  pilloried  by  the  com- 
mittees of  the  other  side.  Thus,  partisanship  would  be 
reduced  more  and  more  to  the  field  of  inferences ;  and  the 
public  mind  could  reach  a  fairer  judgment  as  to  the  real 
merits  of  the  case. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  prove  the  value  of  such  a  device 
to  both  nation  and  party.  A  few  examples,  however,  may 
serve  to  indicate  how  it  might  work.  Suppose  the  propo- 
sition were  made  by  a  government  to  protect  the  property 
of  its  nationals  in  some  relatively  backward  country.  This 
seems  like  a  somewhat  simple  proposition,  but  it  may  prove 
of  the  gravest  importance.  The  World  War  sprang  from 
one  not  much  unlike  it.  Questions  of  national  honor  are 
at  once  involved.  These,  in  turn,  rapidly  stimulate  patriotic 
emotions.  In  spite  of  a  dozen  Bryan  treaties,  this  country 
is  as  likely  as  any  other,  not  to  wait  and  weigh  the  issue. 
In  such  a  crisis,  only  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  can  effec- 
tively safeguard  the  nation  from  unredeemable  blunders — 
and  blunders  in  such  matters  are  invariably  crimes — in 
either  failing  in  its  duty  to  its  own  citizens  or  committing 
acts  of  aggression  in  the  name  of  justice.  The  peace  of  the 
world  depends  to  a  large  degree  upon  fuller  knowledge. 

38 


Had  the  Austrian  cabinet  known  what  Berchthold  knew 
but  concealed  from  it,  that  the  murder  of  the  Archduke 
Ferdinand  was  not  instigated  from  Serbia,  the  war  might 
have  been  averted. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  questions  which  cannot  be 
solved  this  way.  Any  committee  of  research  which  set 
out  to  answer  everything  would  soon  make  itself  ridiculous. 
It  is  not  proposed  to  substitute  professors  for  statesmen. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  political  insight ;  and  there  are 
men  of  genius  who  reach  just  conclusions  by  something 
approaching  intuition.  Pedantry  is  no  substitute  for  com- 
mon sense.  But  common  sense  itself  can  be  applied  to  the 
elimination  of  pedantry  from  such  a  plan.  Properly  de- 
limited and  articulated  to  its  uses,  a  Research  Department 
should  form  a  part  of  every  well-ordered  political  party's 
household. 

The  experiment  here  proposed  is  not  a  new  one.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  nearest  approach  to  what  is  here  sug- 
gested, is  the  Labor  Research  Department  maintained  in 
connection  with  the  British  Labor  movement.  It,  in  turn, 
owes  its  initiation  to  Fabian  Socialism ;  but  there  is  a  wide 
difference  between  the  specific  purposes  of  socialist  study- 
groups  or  research  committees,  and  the  open  and  free 
analysis  of  all  kinds  of  questions  which  come  within  the 
purview  of  such  a  miscellaneous  body  as  our  old-line  politi- 
cal party.  Socialist  debaters  have  long  enjoyed  the  ad- 
vantage of  this  superior  piece  of  mechanism — a  little  section 
of  the  co-operative  commonwealth,  which  they  themselves 
have  created,  but  their  activity  is  rather  to  be  classed  with 
that  of  those  groups  mentioned  above,  whose  action  is  less 
through  than  across  the  existing  state-mechanism.  The 
great  political  parties  lack  that  coherence  and  singleness  of 
purpose  which  characterizes  socialism ;  they  are  less  organs 
of  a  doctrine  and  more  humanly  complex.  Hence  the 
British  party  is  more  akin.  For  it  concerns  itself  with 
national  policies  as  such,  and  not  simply  with  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  labor-state. 

39 


The  Labor  Research  Department  is  therefore  an  inter- 
esting institution  to  study.  It  attempts  to  answer  questions 
of  fact  (as  well  as  to  suggest  policy)  in  all  matters  which 
affect  the  nation,  since  it  holds  that  the  interests  of  labor 
are  as  large  as  those  of  the  nation  itself.  This  breadth  of 
view  may  of  course  be  interpreted  two  ways ;  but,  without 
going  into  the  question  as  to  whether  Labor  is  enhancing 
its  class  to  cover  the  nation  or  simply  losing  its  own  nar- 
rowness, the  fact  remains  that  we  have  here  substantially 
a  national  political  party  using  a  research  mechanism  in 
the  way  described.  Its  reference  files  contain  tabulated 
and  statistical  material  on  all  kinds  of  questions;  tariffs, 
British  trade  in  Africa,  opium  traffic,  reparations,  mandates, 
colonial  policies,  etc.  Its  staff,  largely  voluntary — for  its 
funds  are  so  slight  that  it  can  hardly  exist  without  help — 
is  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  trained  investigators  and  tech- 
nical experts,  mostly  college  men  and  women,  who  can  be 
set  upon  special  tasks  of  investigation  as  the  demand  arises. 
Any  opinions  it  expresses  are  edited  by  committees  with 
an  eye  to  the  facts ;  it  is  as  near  applied  political  science 
as  the  limitations  of  party  machinery  permit.  The  result 
is  beyond  expectation.  It  was  largely  by  means  of  this 
device — which  is  not  solely  monopolized  by  the  Research 
Department — that  the  pronouncements  of  British  Labor 
on  world  policies  have,  during  the  last  few  years,  attracted 
such  attention  on  the  part  of  thinking  people  the  world 
over,  by  their  rare  breadth  of  view  and  control  of  fact. 
While  the  older  parties  have  sometimes  seemed  to  be 
floundering  in  the  anarchy  of  thought  which  comes  from 
a  break-down  of  their  ancient  shibboleths,  unable  to  proceed 
further  than  the  expediency  of  the  day  requires — in  short, 
"muddling  through"  and  hardly  knowing  whither — British 
labor  has  managed  to  impress  so  competent  an  observer  as 
Lord  Haldane,  as  being  "on  the  heights."  One  may  utterly 
disagree  with  its  conclusions,  but  it  at  least  forces  its 
opponents  to  meet  fact  with  fact  in  the  great  battle  of 

40 


argument.  And  from  this  sort  of  controversy,  if  from  any, 
truth  emerges. 

If  industrial  democracy  can,  so  early  in  the  day,  show 
such  results  from  applied  research,  still  greater  results 
should  follow  the  co-ordination  and  development  of  the 
agencies  for  research  which  the  great  middle  class  possesses 
— but  ordinarily  fails  to  use,  except  for  profit.  But  to  do 
so,  one  would  have  to  be  ready  to  bring  to  the  problems 
not  only  an  adequate  mechanism  but  also  a  free,  critical 
but  receptive  mind.  The  progress  made  by  labor  toward  clar- 
ification of  the  issues  which  front  it  is  partly  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  largely  lacks  that  sense  of  proprietorship  in  existing 
society  which  makes  even  outworn  institutions  sentimental- 
ly valuable  to  those  whose  heritage  they  have  been.  There 
is  therefore  a  better  chance  for  the  development  of  a  critical 
attitude  in  the  newer  political  forces  than  in  the  old.  But 
those  who  claim  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  things  as  they 
are  must  maintain  the  balance  in  the  state  by  meeting 
criticism  with  fact. 

It  may  be  objected,  from  the  practical  side,  that  a  re- 
search organization  in  connection  with  our  traditional 
parties  would  not  have  as  definite  a  purpose  as  those  work- 
ing with  the  radical  movements.  The  two  great  parties  are 
both  miscellanies,  whereas  the  newer  parties  have  a  nar- 
rower platform.  To  have  anything  approaching,  an  applied 
science  of  politics,  there  should  be  not  merely  an  analysis 
of  facts,  but  co-ordinated  and  directed  criticism,  related 
definitely  to  policies.  This  would  not  be  easy.  It  might 
be  best,  therefore,  to  attempt  a  little  less  at  first ;  and  simply 
propose  to  study  those  problems  which  are  novel  in  Amer- 
ican politics,  to  co-ordinate  the  outlook  of  specialists,  such 
as  engineers  or  economists,  with  those  of  practical  states- 
men, and  so,  by  enlarging  the  premises,  secure  increasing 
breadth  as  well  as  sobriety  of  jtidgment. 

41 


THE  ALTERNATIVES 

If  the  old  parties  continue  to  meet  their  problems  by 
the  old-time  methods  and  refuse  to  employ  more  adequate 
agencies  for  securing  efficiency  in  government,  there  are 
alternatives  which  it  requires  no  gift  of  prophecy  to  fore- 
tell. There  will  be  an  acceleration  of  the  growth  of  that 
group-action  in  politics  referred  to  above ;  and,  along  the 
same  lines  but  still  more  disruptive  of  the  existing  scheme 
of  things,  a  development  of  direct  action  by  which  sections 
of  the  community  will  attempt  to  achieve  their  ends  by 
ignoring  the  machinery  of  representative  government  alto- 
gether. 

The  first  of  these  alternatives  is  more  or  less  inevitable 
in  any  case.  The  only  question  is  how  far  it  will  go  to 
replace  or  nullify  the  party-structure  of  government.  With- 
in due  limits,  there  is  nothing  but  benefit  to  all  concerned 
from  research  committees  maintained  by  private  organiza- 
tions. Farmers,  as  well  as  bankers,  should  be  able  to  make 
their  demands  not  only  more  articulate,  but  also  more  con- 
sistent with  public  welfare.  But  if  the  process  is  unduly 
encouraged,  through  the  absence  of  any  more  general  sift- 
ing of  evidence  by  expert  hands,  the  result  will  be  a 
discrediting  of  political  action ;  chaotic  administration  will 
respond  to  inconsistency  in  policy,  and  the  way  will  lie 
open  to  that  next  step  in  disintegration,  direct  action.  If 
those  parts  of  a  community  who  know  how  their  interests 
are  at  stake  succeed  in  imposing  their  will  upon  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  whole  community,  who  do  not  know  how 
its  interests  are  affected,  there  is  in  operation  a  revolution- 
ary change  in  politics  which  threatens  to  transform  the 
very  nature  of  the  state.  For  it  is  a  process  which  is  not 
likely  to  stop  at  legislative  and  executive  action ;  its 
invasion  of  the  courts  as  well  is  just  as  inevitable.  Subtly 
but  surely,  those  who  know  what  they  want  will  devise  the 

42 


way  to  get  it,  if  they  meet  on  the  other  hand,  only  befuddle- 
ment  and  good  intentions. 

For  the  present,  the  employment  of  adequate  means  to 
express  the  point  of  view  of  different  sections  of  the 
country  on  specific  questions  is  something  to  be  grateful 
for,  rather  than  to  fear.  In  the  absence  of  more  widely 
representative  committees  of  research,  we  must,  in  self- 
defense,  call  for  all  the  information  which  each  technical 
body  can  supply.  Our  safety  lies  in  calling  in  experts  of 
more  than  one  such  body  and  weighing  their  statements. 
We  must  spend  more  and  more  time  in  hearings,  and  leave 
conclusions  largely  to  semi-ofTicial  and  official  boards. 

This  is  a  process  which  is  likely  to  grow  in  any  case. 
But  if  it  grows  by  itself,  without  a  parallel  development  in 
the  unofficial,  but  nation-wide  political  bodies,  it  promises 
to  produce  new  organs  of  government — some  of  which  are 
already  in  but  thinly  disguised  operation.  We  shall  have 
government  by  quasi-judicial  action  of  commissions.  Such 
commission  government  is  probably  a  needed  adjunct  to 
our  present  system ;  but  it  is  well  to  be  aware  of  its  impli- 
cations. For,  if  allowed  just  a  little  more  scope,  it  will 
bring  along  a  new  American  bureaucracy.  xA.nd  bureau- 
cracy means  a  lessening  of  responsible  government. 

There  is  an  easy  optimism  in  democracies ;  that  things 
will  come  out  all  right  in  the  end.  It  combines  readily 
with  a  belief  that  our  political  structure  is  the  happy 
product  of  long  experience,  and  therefore  adequate.  But 
history  leads  to  no  such  complacent  conclusions.  The  past 
is  full  of  fools'  paradises.  The  price  of  liberty  is  more  than 
constant  vigilance ;  there  is  no  virtue  in  merely  being  alert. 
The  most  alert  may  be  the  most  mistaken  if  snap-judg- 
ments and  quick  action  are  the  criteria  of  alertness.  And 
if  liberty  demands  foresight,  much  more  so  does  welfare. 
No  nation  can  live  off  its  political  heritage ;  for  that  is 
something   that    wastes   in   all    but   the    most   experienced 

43 


hands.     The  processes  of  history  are  long;  and  we  are  in 
their  midst,  not  at  the  close. 

But  if  the  issues  before  us  gain  in  clarity  when  seen  in 
their  true  perspectives,  they  gain  in  significance  when  seen 
in  their  application  to  the  present.  Politics  no  longer 
touches  the  outer  fringe  of  daily  life.  Every  household  is 
aflFected  by  it.  Our  problem,  viewed  nationally,  is  to  give 
direction  and  cohesion  to  this  vast  but  relatively  inarticulate 
power  of  public  opinion.  Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  individual,  it  is  to  secure  a  larger  measure  of  intelligent 
interest  in  these  things. 

The  fact  that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  historic  processes 
instead  of  at  their  close,  is  after  all  a  cheering  one.  What- 
ever happens  to  such  schemes  as  these,  it  is  well  to  realize 
what  can  be  done.  Reform  in  politics,  one  way  or  another, 
must  keep  pace  with  educational  and  economic  reforms. 
The  political  and  social  sciences,  which  never  before  our 
day  have  been  called  upon  to  meet  the  world  problems  of 
democracy,  must  work  out  their  methods  by  experiment. 
That  suggested  here  is  but  one  of  many.  But  some  day 
it  should  be  possible  to  treat  quackery  in  politics,  as  we 
have  learned — only  in  our  own  time — to  treat  it  in  medicine, 
and  brand  the  demagogue  as  a  charlatan.  This  does  not 
call  for  any  change  in  human  nature.  The  ancient  virtues 
could  still  operate.  Patriotism  would  still  stir  the  same 
sentiments  as  it  has  always  done,  and  the  old  ardor  of 
attachment  to  immemorial  things  continue  to  glow.  Im- 
pulse will  long  continue  to  make  a  stronger  appeal  thari 
intelligence.  But  the  disciplines  of  science  could  be  applied 
to  society  as  elsewhere — not  left  in  academic  desuetude — 
in  order  to  prevent  even  the  best  impulses  in  the  world 
from  beclouding  the  issues.  For  some  of  these  issues  may 
be  vital  for  civilization  itself. 

44 


DEMOCRACY  AND  POLITICAL  MORALITY* 

The  generalizations  of  history  are  seldom  of  interest  to 
the  reformer,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  usually  stand 
in  his  way.  But  there  is  one  important  field  which  seems 
to  have  escaped  analysis,  where  Clio  offers  unexpected  help 
to  those  who  in  these  troubled  times  are  trying  to  keep 
their  bearings  by  old  landmarks,  while  fully  aware  that  they 
are  moving  farther  and  farther  from  them  every  day.  It  is 
a  generalization  in  the  field  of  morals,  and  that  is  perhaps 
why  it  has  escaped  notice,  but  as  it  bears  directly  upon  the 
most  pressing  problem  of  the  hour — the  effect  upon  society 
of  the  enlarged  national  control  in  industry  and  other  things 
— it  should  offer  whatever  consolation  it  can  bring  to  those 
who  watch  the  running  tide  of  public  affairs  with  sad  and 
disillusioned  ej'es,  and  it  may  perhaps  help  to  cheer  to 
some  degree  those  who  are  struggling  somewhat  uncer- 
tainly to  realize  the  aspirations  of  democracy. 

If  one  looks  over  the  political  history  of  modern  Europe 
and  of  America,  three  main  facts  stand  out.  There  is  in 
the  first  place  that  steady  growth  of  representative  govern- 
ment by  means  of  the  widening  of  the  electorate,  which 
now,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  extends  over  practically  the 
entire  citizenship.  This  patent  fact  of  the  extension  of  the 
suffrage  to  a  practically  universal  basis  is  what  is  in  most 
people's  minds  when  they  speak  of  the  growth  of  democracy 
in  our  era.  Barrier  after  barrier  has  been  passed  until  we 
have  at  last  done  everything  which  the  conservatives  of 
even  a  generation  ago  regarded  as  dangerous  to  the  com- 
monweal. We  have  done  what  Lecky  so  frankly  charac- 
terized as  political  folly — we  have  placed  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  "unintelligent"  and  we  have  done  this  on  a 
colossal  scale.     There  is  no  need  to  elaborate  this  point. 


♦Although  opening  up  a  somewhat  different  theme  to  that  in 
the  foregoing  chapters,  this  article,  reprinted  from  the  Political 
Science  Quarterly  for  March,  1921,  has  been  added  as  an  appendix, 
for  reasons  which  may  appear  toward  the  close. 

45 


but  it  is  only  by  contrast  with  the  extremely  limited  elec- 
torate of  a  century  ago,  that  we  can  grasp  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  change  which  has  taken  place.  Instead  of  a 
few  thousand  leading  citizens,  the  masses  pass  judgment 
on  the  policies  and  acts  of  the  modern  state. 

Parallel  with  this  familiar  fact  runs  another  hardly  less 
familiar  but  somewhat  more  intricate.  The  scope  of  gov- 
ernment has  increased  almost  as  notably  as  the  suffrage. 
The  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  war  govern- 
ments was  but  an  extravagant  and  revolutionary  phase 
of  a  movement  which  extends  back  through  our  whole  era. 
When  the  modern  states  were  taking  shape  under  the  stress 
of  the  new  business  conditions  which  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion had  brought  about,  the  theory  of  government  was  that 
of  laissez-faire.  The  chief  aim  was  to  get  rid  of  the  hamper- 
ing paternalism  of  the  old  regime  and  allow  the  individual 
free  scope  for  the  development  of  the  new  business  relation- 
ships which  had  their  roots  in  the  factory  and  the  mine. 
Political  institutions  based  upon  old  territorial  sovereignty 
and  more  or  less  outworn  administrative  procedure,  were 
ill-adapted  to  control  and  direct  intelligently  the  political 
forces  emerging  under  the  aegis  of  capitalism.  The  prin- 
ciples of  the  new  freedom  enunciated  by  Turgot  in  France 
and  by  Adam  Smith  in  Britain,  were  embedded  to  the  full 
in  the  one  constitution  of  a  great  state  which  was  drawn 
up  at  that  time — that  of  the  United  States,  where  the  tra- 
dition was  further  developed  through  the  influence  of  great 
jurists  like  John  Marshall.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  became  the  ultimate  safeguard  of  the  liberties 
of  the  individual  against  the  interference  of  the  govern- 
ment, in  the  eyes  of  orthodox  political  theorists,  rescuing 
sovereignty  itself  from  the  possible  tyranny  of  national 
representation  in  Congress. 

From  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  on- 
wards, the  trend  of  constitutional  history  has  been  along 
the  lines  of  a  growing  conscious  protest  and  an  accumula- 

46 


tion  of  legislative  enactments  against  this  first  great  prin- 
ciple of  laisses-faire.  One  can  trace  the  development  in  the 
mtiltiplication  of  administrative  offices  as  well  as  in  the 
scope  and  character  of  legislation.  The  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  modern  state  has  grown  so  vast  and  intricate 
as  to  defy  the  analysis  of  all  but  the  most  highly  specialized 
experts.  Government  is  no  longer  possible  on  the  simple 
basis  of  trial  and  error  carried  out  by  distinguished  ama- 
teurs, and  if  parliaments  retain  in  outward  appearance 
much  of  their  earlier  form,  their  debates  touch  but  a  fringe 
of  the  vast  political  control  which  they  exercise.  This 
vast  increase  in  the  scope  of  government  needs  only  to  be 
mentioned  to  be  recognized  as  hardly  less  typical,  in  the 
growth  of  modern  politics,  than  the  growth  of  the  franchise. 

Starting  with  these  two  familiar  generalizations  we 
come  upon  the  third,  which  is  intimately  connected  with 
them,  but  which  seems  to  escape  notice. 

Both  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  the  extension  of 
the  scope  of  government  have  increased  the  possibilities  of 
corruption.  Personal  responsibility  grows  ever  more  diffi- 
cult to  place.  Even  in  the  administration  of  single  depart- 
ments the  impersonal  tends  to  replace  the  personal  and 
reliance  to  be  placed  on  machinery  more,  and  on  individual 
character  less.  Along  with  this  growing  impersonality  of 
government  grows  the  increased  opportunity  for  corrupt 
practices  from  the  very  enlargement  of  its  scope.  With 
every  enlargement  there  is  that  much  more  chance  for 
graft.  Wherever  national  affairs  are  entrusted  to  func- 
tionaries, which  formerly  were  left  for  the  private  initiative 
of  citizens,  there  is  just  that  much  more  temptation  for 
corruption. 

Yet  the  history  of  public  morals  throughout  the  same 
period  seems  to  indicate  that  the  very  reverse  of  this  is  true. 
Apparently,  parallel  with  the  enlargement  of  the  suffrage 
and  the  extension  of  the  scope  of  government,  there  has 
been,  not  a  decline,  but  a  steady  growth  in  public  honesty. 

47 


If  this  be  so,  the  fact  is  of  the  utmost  significance,  for  it 
means  that  a  study  of  the  past  may  relieve  us  of  at  least 
half  our  anxiety  about  the  future.  Distrust  in  democracy 
is  twofold ;  distrust  in  its  moral  integrity  and  distrust  in  its 
capacity  for  affairs.  If  history  can  remove  the  former, 
the  question  narrows  down  to  the  simple — but  as  yet  un- 
solved— issue  of  efficiency. 

But  is  this  really  the  case?  History  does  not  often  pre- 
sent any  such  argument  for  optimism ;  and  it  is  surely  a 
bold  optimism  which  can  discover,  either  in  the  processes 
of  democracy  or  in  a  w-orld  so  susceptible  to  political  cor- 
ruption as  our  own,  any  lessened  menace  from  the  selfish 
ambitions  of  those  whose  private  fortunes  are  bound  up 
with  public  affairs,  or  even  from  the  hardly  less  corrupting 
influences  of  communities  which,  under  the  guise  of  local 
patriotism,  prey  upon  the  interests  of  the  commonweal. 
Moreover,  although  this  optimism  is  justified  only,  if  at  all, 
by  the  facts  of  history,  the  facts  have  not  yet  been  grappled 
with  in  any  large  and  synthetic  survey  by  historians.  No 
scientific  history  of  corrupt  practices  in  politics  has  yet  been 
written,  no  counterpart  to  the  manuals  of  constitutional 
history  dealing  with  the  shady  side  of  that  structure.  Such 
studies  of  corruption  as  have  been  made  have  been 
concerned  with  specific  or  local  issues,  or  have  been  pre- 
pared as  partisan  attacks  on  political  opponents,  as  pam- 
phlets for  the  times,  rather  than  as  contributions  to  history. 
The  subject  of  the  misuse  rather  than  the  legitimate  and 
sanctioned  use  of  the  machinery  of  government  still  awaits 
the  scientific  historian. 

If,  however,  history  has  not  solved  the  problem,  it  at 
least  presents  it  to  us ;  and  it  is  time  to  examine  its  impli- 
cations and  frame  a  provisional  hypothesis  along  lines 
which  seem  to  fit  the  major  facts  upon  which  all  can  agree. 
Stated  baldly,  that  hypothesis  seems  to  be  that,  instead  of 
increasing  with  the  growth  of  democracy,  the  practice  of 

48 


corruption  in  politics  tends  to  decrease.  What  can  history 
do  with  such  an  hypothesis? 

The  first  and  most  obvious  answer  is  to  be  found  in  a 
broad  comparison  of  the  practices  of  today  with  those  ad- 
mitted as  legitimate  or  practised  widely  at  various  stages 
of  the  development  of  the  modern  state.  Take  first  the 
basis  of  representative  government  itself,  the  election.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  do  more  than  call  attention  to  the 
contrast  between  the  methods  of  today  and  those  of  a 
century  or  so  ago.  What  civilized  country  would  now  sub- 
mit to  the  practices,  which  Hogarth's  pencil  has  so 
graphically  depicted,  of  the  elections  of  the  old  regime? 
Dark  corners  still  exist  in  all  countries  where  such  methods 
may  be  found,  but  they  exist  in  defiance  of  the  law  and  of 
the  public  conscience.  The  mixture  of  bribery  and  intimi- 
dation which  so  largely  determined  the  suff"rage  upon  which 
the  government  of  the  good  old  days  reposed,  would,  if 
revealed  today,  endanger  rather  than  strengthen  the  tenure 
of  power  of  any  civilized  government  which  had  con- 
sciously resorted  to  such  devices.  Yet  some  of  the  most 
glorious  pages  in  the  history  of  the  English  Parliament 
were  due  to  statesmen  whose  power  rested  upon  the  sup- 
port of  men  elected  by  means  so  corrupt  as  would  today 
send  to  prison,  instead  of  to  St.  Stephens,  those  who  em- 
ployed them.  The  revelations  of  the  era  of  the  first  Reform 
Bill  are  so  familiar  to  us  that  we  seem  to  forget  their 
implications  in  the  contrast  which  they  offer  to  the  political 
life  of  today. 

Corrupt  manipulation  of  elections  is,  however,  a  much 
more  intricate  thing  than  that  which  shows  itself  in  crude 
forms  on  election  day.  One  is  reminded  of  this  especially 
in  French  elections,  where  the  independence  of  the  elec- 
torate suffers  from  the  subtle  but  powerful  influence  of  a 
bureaucracy  whose  interests  are  bound  up  with  those  of 
the  administration,  and  perhaps  as  well  from  certain  vested 
interests    whose    continuance    depends    upon    government 

49 


support.  But  the  most  pessimistic  critic  of  the  politics  of 
the  Third  Republic  may  find  a  reason  for  hesitation  in  any 
wholesale  denunciation  of  present  evils  by  a  study  of  the 
practices  sanctioned  by  a  man  capable  otherwise  of  such 
loftiness  of  view  as  Guizot.  It  is  true  that  Guizot  over- 
reached the  mark  even  for  the  France  of  his  day,  but  the 
fact  remains  that  the  methods  which  he  employed  were  by 
no  means  outlawed  after  his  overthrow.  Compared  with 
any  previous  period  of  French  history,  the  electoral  prac- 
tices of  the  France  of  the  Third  Republic  invite  the  atten- 
tion of  the  optimist. 

The  same  general  facts  stand  out  in  a  survey  of  electoral 
practices  in  the  United  States.  With  successive  adminis- 
trations turning  the  tables  upon  their  opponents  there  have 
grown  up  safeguards  of  the  public  against  corrupt  practices 
which  would  nullify  its  will  as  registered  in  the  ballot,  to 
such  an  extent  that  the  things  done  openly,  even  a  genera- 
tion ago,  would  set  their  perpetrators  now  behind  the  bars 
of  federal  or  state  prisons  instead  of  securing  for  them  office 
and  power. 

However  poorly  the  laws  may  still  be  enforced  in  back- 
ward communities,  the  laws  which  have  accumulated  upon 
the  statute  books  during  the  last  generation  to  maintain 
the  integrity  of  elections,  bear  witness  to  a  constant  height- 
ening of  moral  effort  in  the  fundamentals  of  representative 
government. 

If  one  turns  from  elections  and  parliaments  to  admin- 
istration and  the  civil  service,  the  same  general  tendency 
marks  the  history  of  the  last  half-century.  Almost  within 
the  memory  of  the  present  generation  power  has  been 
regarded  as  an  avenue  to  wealth.  If  one  extends  the  sur- 
vey back  to  the  beginnings  of  political  institutions,  one 
comes  upon  the  time  when  such  a  maxim  would  be  almost 
axiomatic.  It  has  required  forces  of  revolution  to  induce 
kings  and  rulers  even  to  account  to  the  public  for  the  spend- 
ing of  its  money.     The  process  by  which  government  con- 

50 


tractors  founded  noble  houses  and  so  perpetuated  in  vested 
interests  the  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  office,  furnishes  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  theory  of  democratic  administration 
that  the  public  servant  should  receive  less  for  his  services 
than  he  could  procure  for  the  same  ability  directed  toward 
private  ends. 

What  is  scandalous  today  in  the  administration  of  the 
modern  state  was  common  practice  in  the  days  preceding 
representative  government,  and  continued  to  be  not  uncom- 
mon practice,  avowed  and  sought,  until  our  own  time.  It 
may  indeed  be  that  the  moral  standards  set  for  public  serv- 
ice by  democracy  have  demanded  such  a  degree  of  self- 
sacrifice  that  efficiency  has  been  hampered.  The  voting 
tax-payer's  reluctance  to  see  others  profit  from  his  contri- 
butions to  the  public  purse  has  clothed  itself  in  the  altruistic 
language  of  general  self-denial;  but  whatever  selfish  mo- 
tives may  lie  at  the  root,  the  effect  upon  the  administrative 
staff  itself  has  been  a  heightened  sense  of  responsibility, 
and  the  acceptance  of  standards  of  public  honesty  undreamt 
of  in  the  past. 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  is  a  misleading  and  super- 
ficial line  of  historial  platitudes,  and  that  while  its  legis- 
lative and  administrative  branches,  both,  have  renounced 
the  cruder  methods  of  political  corruption,  the  modern 
political  system,  extending  as  it  does  throughout  the  whole 
life  of  the  nation,  still  perpetuates  effectively,  if  more 
subtly,  opportunities  for  corrupt  practice.  Where  the 
public  life  and  the  business  of  the  community  are  so  largely 
controlled  by  legislation,  and  where  that  legislation  is  de- 
pendent upon  so  many  personal  factors,  the  problem  of 
corruption  tends  to  elude  analysis.  The  critic  of  today 
may  find  in  the  functioning  of  government  itself  a  counter- 
part of  the  cruder  and  more  obvious  corruption  of  earlier 
days. 

The  answer  to  this  criticism  demands  more  investigation 
than  has  yet  been  given  it.     But  if  it  is  meant  to  imply  that 

SI 


wherever  legislation  responds  to  the  call  of  interest,  it  is 
necessarily  corrupt,  we  are  surely  carrying  the  theory  of 
politics  over  to  an  unjustifiable  altruism.  It  can  hardly  be 
a  sane  theory  of  government  which  would  exact  of  legis- 
lation such  a  degree  of  disinterestedness  as  would  dissociate 
it  from  any  large  section  of  the  community  on  the  theory 
that  it  was  bound  up  with  the  prejudices  and  self-interest 
of  those  who  secured  its  adoption. 

The  problem  here  involves  the  whole  field  of  the  history 
of  morals;  a  field  so  difficult  that  historians  of  the  more 
cautious  temper  are  inclined  to  refuse  to  deal  with  it. 
What  after  all  are  the  criteria  to  be  applied?  The  moral 
judgment  of  one  age  is  not  always  applicable  to  another. 
Political  corruption  may  be  simply  another  name  for  inade- 
quate machinery  of  government  or  inexperience  in  handling 
it,  or  for  a  low  degree  of  political  capacity.  It  may  be  a 
short-cut  towards  efficiency  and  justified  by  its  results  or 
its  adaptation  to  a  particular  time  and  country.  The  his- 
tory of  morals  ceases  to  be  historical  if  it  judges  all  ages  and 
societies  by  a  single  standard.  Throughout  most  of  the 
Christian  era  for  instance,  the  morals  of  the  Roman  world 
have  been  appraised  according  to  the  standards  of  the 
Christian  Fathers.  Yet  it  would  go  hard  with  the  world 
today  if  it  were  to  be  measured  by  the  ideals  of  a  St. 
Jerome.  The  problem  of  morals  in  history  cannot  be 
solved  by  the  application  of  absolute  principles.  Judged 
by  Christian  standards  the  Romans  were  surely  in  about 
as  bad  plight  when  they  conquered  the  world  as  when  they 
lost  it.  The  province  of  history  is  the  slow  upbuilding  of 
ordered  society  in  this  imperfect  world  and  not  the  depic- 
tion of  divine  government  in  a  City  of  God.  Yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  we  to  eliminate  from  our  criticism  those 
principles  which  furnish  us  with  a  point  of  contrast  with 
reality,  we  should  be  equally  at  sea.  There  is  only  one 
criterion  which  will  meet  this  compromise  between  the 
idealistic  and  the  realistic  point  of  view.     The  test  lies  in 

52 


what  contributes  most  toward  the  commonweal.  This  does 
not  mean  what  contributes  most  at  any  given  moment,  but 
what  history  in  the  long  run  will  justify. 

The  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  the  further  elimination 
of  corruption  in  politics  depends  upon  enlightenment.  The 
chief  measure  of  precaution  on  the  part  of  any  people  is 
education,  in  order  that  it  may  discover  where  its  own 
self-interest  lies;  and  the  only  way  to  secure  that  end  is  by 
actual  experience  in  political  life,  which  means  an  ever- 
widening  measure  of  democratic  control. 

The  achievement  of  democratic  efficiency  is  thus  a 
fundamental  chapter  in  the  history  of  public  morals. 


53 


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